Graduate Room
TR
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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
MRS.
ROBERT ARCHET WOODS
THE COMPLETE
WORKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN
Two thousand and sixty-two copies of this
edition — of which two thousand are for sale in
England and America — have been printed at the
Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh, and the type has
been distributed.
LIBRART EDITION
THE WORKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN
EDITED BY
E. T. COOK
AND
ALEXANDER WEDDERBURN
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
NEW YORK : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1908
All rights reserved
Library
TR
LIBRARY EDITION S*f\
C *n
VOLUME XXXIV
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
ON THE OLD ROAD
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RUSKINIANA
John Ruskin
1882
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
ON THE OLD ROAD
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RUSKINIANA
BY
JOHN RUSKIN
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
NEW YORK : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1908
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXXIV
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......... xxi
INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME ....... xxiii
I. THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY (1884)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ......... 5
TEXT :—
PREFACE .......... 7
LECTURE i. (FEBRUARY 4, 1884) . . . . . . 9
LECTURE ii. (FEBRUARY 11, 1884 : MAINLY NOTES ON LECTURE i.) 42
II. ON THE OLD ROAD
Miscellaneous Essays and Articles, 1871-1888
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . .85
1. INTRODUCTORY. " MY FIRST EDITOR : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
REMINISCENCE" (1878): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 92
TEXT ........... 93
2. "THE RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION PROPORTIONED TO
THE RANK IN ANIMATED LIFE" (1871): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .106
TEXT ........... 107
3. THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE (1873): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . • .114
TEXT . . . . . . . . . . .115
4. ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIAEVAL CHRISTENDOM : A PREFACE AND
NOTES (1875): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .128
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . .129
NOTES . 130
x CONTENTS
5. RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT (1876): —
PAGE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE (with two Circulars issued by Rusfcin) . 135
TEXT 137
6. THE THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM (1878): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .146
TEXT . ........ 14-7
7. THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH : LETTERS TO THE
CLERGY (1879):—
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .179
LETTERS I.-XI. ...... ... 191
EPILOGUE . . . . . . . . . .215
APPENDIX :
1. A LATIN LITANY ........ 231
2. ADDITIONAL LETTERS TO THE REV. F. A. MALLESON , 234
8. A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY (1880): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 246
TEXT ........... 247
9. FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL (1880, 1881): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ..... ... 264
TEXT :
I. SCOTT (June 1880) 265
II. SCOTT, RYME, AND WORDSWORTH (August 1880) . . 303
HI. BYRON (September 1880) 322
iv. WORDSWORTH AND BYRON (November 1880) . . . 348
v. THE TWO SERVANTS (October 1881) . . . .370
APPENDIX (additional matter from the MS.): —
SOUTHKY AND BYRON ....... 395
SHELLEY AND BYRON ....... 397
10. USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER (1880): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 400
TEXT :
THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER'S REPLY .... 401
RUSKIN'S REJOINDER 405
CONTENTS xi
11. THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE TOWNS: AN
INTRODUCTION (1883): —
PACK
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . .428
TEXT ........... 429
12. THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING: A PREFACE (1884): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 436
TEXT ........... 437
13. USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS: AN INTRODUCTION (1885): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 442
TEXT ........... 443
14. THE NATIONAL GALLERY: A PREFACE (1888): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 450
TEXT . . . . . . . . . . .451
III. ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Scattered Letters in the Neivspapers, etc., 1851-1899
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ....... 459
AUTHOR'S PREFACE (RouEN, 1880) ....... 469
AUTHOR'S EPILOGUE (AMIENS, 1880) ...... 473
CONTENTS OF THE LETTERS ACCORDING TO SUBJECT .... 475
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : —
HISTORICAL NOMENCLATURE FOR ENGLISH GOTHIC (VENICE, October
1851)- 481
" THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE " :
A LETTER TO THE ARTIST (1854) ..... 483
A REVIEW (January 1855) ...... 483
EDINBURGH CASTLE. TWO LETTERS (ouNBAR, September 14, and
PENRITH, September 27, 1857) 484
THE SALE OF MR. WINDUs's PICTURES (DENMARK HILL, March 28,
1859) 488
COVENTRY PATMORE'S " FAITHFUL FOR EVER " (DENMARK HILL,
October I860) 488
ART-TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE (DENMARK HILL, November
I860) 490
xii CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS (GENEVA, October 20, 1862) . . 491
OAK SILKWORMS (GENEVA, October 20, 1862) .... 49S
TURNER AND CLAUDE (GENEVA, February 16, 1863) . . . 493
"THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE." TWO LETTERS (November 20
and December 15, 1866) . ..... 494
TO AN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR (DENMARK HILL, June 20, 1867) . 495
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY (DENMARK HILL, January 21, 1868) . 495
TRUE EDUCATION (DENMARK HILL, January 31, 1868) . . 496
USURY AND THE JEWS (DENMARK HILL, August 12, 1868) . . 497
GERALD MASSEY'S POEMS (1869). ...... 497
THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS (DENMARK HILL, January 14, 1870) 498
FEMALE FRANCHISE (VENICE, May 29, 1870) .... 499
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. TWO LETTERS (DENMARK HILL, OctO-
ber 6 and 7, 1870) 499
SAD-COLOURED COSTUMES (DENMARK HILL, October 14, 1870) . 502
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS (January 1871) . . . . . 503
COMING CATASTROPHE (1871) . • . . . . . 504
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR" (May 18, 1871) .... 504
THE BLIND (DENMARK HILL, September 2, 1871) . . . 505
"FORS CLAVIGERA" (MELROSE, September 24, 1871) . . . 505
DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME (DENMARK HILL, December 11, 1871) . 505
CASTLES AND KENNELS (DENMARK HILL, December 20, 1871) . 506
VERONA v. WARWICK (DENMARK HILL, December 24, 1871) . . 507
TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW (OXFORD, October 30, 1872) . 508
"ACT, ACT, IN THE LIVING PRESENT" (OXFORD, December 24,
1872) 508
WOMAN'S WORK (May 1873) ....... 509
TURNER'S "WINDMILL AND LOCK" (December 13, 1873) . . 510
TO THE DERBY SCHOOL OF ART (OXFORD, December 1873) . .510
"LABORARE EST ORARE" (OXFORD, December 1873) . . . 512
RAPHAEL FOR LIVERPOOL (OXFORD, December 31, 1873) . . 512
THE GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS.
TWO LETTERS (ROME, May 20, and ASSISI, June 12, 1874). 513
THE VALUE OF LECTURES (ROME, May 26, 1874) . . .517
THE SLADE PROFESSORSHIP (OXFORD, 1874) . . . .518
THE POSITION OF CRITICS (BRANTWooo, January 18, 1875) . 518
THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS (OXFORD, June 6, 1875) . . . 519
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY (OXFORD, June 18, 1875) . . . 520
CONTENTS xiii
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued ; —
PAGE
ART AND SMOKE (February 18, 1876) 521
BLAKE'S POEMS (BRANTWOOD, May 8, 1876) . . . .521
MODERN WARFARE (1876) ........ 522
"A GENTLE SCHOLAR" (VENICE, November 13, 1876) . . 525
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY. FIVE LETTERS (VENICE, February
8, 10, 11, and 12, 1877; and MALHAM, July 3, 1878) . 526
MODERN RESTORATION ( VENICE, April 15, 1877) . . .531
RIBBESFORD CHURCH (BRANTWOOD, July 24, 1877) . . . 531
THE TEACHING OF SINGING (1877) 532
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY (October 10, 1877) . . . 533
LIFE IN GLASGOW (OXFORD, December 1877) .... 534
A PAGAN MESSAGE (KERNE HILL, December 19, 1877) . . 534
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD,
n.d., and EDINBURGH, September 29, 1878) . . . 535
SHEPHERD'S "BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN." TWO LETTERS (BRANT-
WOOD, September 30, and October 23, 1878) . . . 537
TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM " (BRANTWOOD, November 14, 1878) 538
THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE (February 1, 1879) .... 539
THE READING OF NONSENSE (May 3, 1879) .... 540
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT (flRANTWOOD, July 18, 1879) . • . 540
"THE EAGLE'S NEST" (BRANTWOOD, August 17, 1879) • • 541
POLITICS IN YOUTH (SHEFFIELD, October 19, 1879) . • .541
ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES (January 1880) . . . 542
THE PERFECTION OF PRINTING (1880) ..... 543
TRUE NEWS OF GOOD (AMIENS, October 26, 1880) . . . 543
THE CERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION (January 8, 1880) . . . 544
WHISTLER v. RUSKIN (BRANTWOOD, January 24, 1880) . . 544
IRVING'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE" (February 6, 1880) . . 545
RECITATIONS (SHEFFIELD, February 16, 1880) .... 545
RUSKIN'S TEACHING (BRANTWOOD, June 7, 1880) . . . 546
THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. FIVE LETTERS
(BRANTWOOD, June 10, June 13, June 24; ROUEN, September
28; BRANTWOOD, n.d., 1880) 547
DRAMATIC REFORM. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, July 30, and
AMIENS, October 12, 1880) 549
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR" (1880) ...... 551
A "CHESTERFIELD" LETTER. TWO LETTERS (HERNE HILL, Novem-
ber 15 and 19, 1880) .551
xiv CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
COUNSEL TO YOUNG SCOTS (BRANTWOOD, January 1, 1881). . 553
A DRAWING LESSON (1881 ?)....... 554
WOOD-CARVING. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, February 18, 1881,
and HERNE HILL, December 5, 1882) .... 555
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION (BRANTWOOD, May 23, 1881) . . 556
THE SHORES OF CONISTON (BRANTWOOD, May 27, 1881) . . 557
SHORT WORDS AND LONG (BRANTWOOD, July 1, 1881) . . 558
GEORGE ELIOT (BRANTWOOD, October 2, 1881) . . . . 558
NURSERIES (BRANTWOOD, November 23, 1881) .... 559
THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY (BRANTWOOD, February 1882) . 560
JUMBO AT THE zoo (HERNE HILL, February 23, 1882) . . 560
A MEDAL FROM THE PRINCE OF MANTUA (HERNE HILL, April 2,
1882) 561
PHOTOGRAPHS (April 30, 1882) 562
EMERSON (BRANTWOOD, February 9» 1883) .... 563
TO THE SALTAIRE SALT SCHOOLS (1883) ..... 56*3
THE BUNNEY MEMORIAL FUND (BRANTWOOD, August 10, 1883) . 563
SEA PICTURES (1883) ........ 564
SYDNEY SMITH (OXFORD, November 15, 1883) .... 564
A PENNYWORTH OF THOUGHTS (BRANTWOOD, December 30,
1883) 565
MR. HENRY GEORGE AND LAND REFORM (BRANTWOOD, December 31,
1883) 565
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. TWO LETTERS (January 1884) . . . 565
PAINTING AND MUSIC (HERNE HILL, February 10, 1884) . . 567
A NEWLY DISCOVERED TURNER (February 1884) .... 567
"THE CHURCH REFORMER" (February 1884) .... 567
RAILWAYS IN DERBYSHIRE. THREE LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, April 2,
7, and 13, 1884) 568
BILLIARDS (BRANTWOOD, June 1884) ...... 572
RULES OF PERSPECTIVE (June 4, 1884) ..... 573
AMATEUR CHESS. FOUR LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, June 25, July 2,
4, 1884; and HERNE HILL, Whit Monday, 1885) . . 573
ART CRITICISM (October 1884) 576
CHEAP BOOKS (OXFORD, November 4, 1884) .... 576
STIPPLING (BRANTWOOD, December 16, 1884) .... 577
"WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE" (January 24, 1885) . . . 577
GORDON AND THE SOUDAN (BRANTWOOD, February 19, 1885) . 578
CONTENTS xv
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
GORDON AND CARLYLE (BRANTWOOD, February 24, 1885) . . 579
USURY AND INTEREST (BRANTWOOD, March 10, 1885) . . 579
THE DESTRUCTION OF FOOTPATHS (BRANTWOOD, March 25, 1885) 580
MODERN ENGLISH SPORTS (cHISLEHURST, June 5, 1885) . . 580
THE IRISH QUESTION (BRANTWOOD, January 4, 1886) . . .581
THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS. THREE LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, January
13, and February, 1886) 582
ADVICE TO A READER (1886) ....... 589
"MR. RUSKIN'S VIEWS" (BRANTAVOOD, January 16, 1886) . . 589
MODERN EDUCATION (BRANTWOOD, March l6, 1886) . . . 590
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RESULTS (BRANTWOOD, March 24, 1 886) . 590
THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK (BRANTWOOD, April 2, 1886) . . 592
KEEPING ONE'S MONEY (BRANTWOOD, April 20, 1886) . . 593
WASTING IT (BRANTWOOD, May 18, 1886) ..... 593
THE BIBLE (BRANTWOOD, St. Mark's Day, April 25, 1886) . 593
A CHRISTIAN'S DUTY (BRANTWOOD, May 6, 1886) . . . 594
THE CRIME OF DEBT. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, May l.Q and
June 14, 1886) 594
DARWINISM (BRANTWOOD, May 24, 1886) ..... 595
NATIONAL PENANCE (BRANTWOOD, May 29, 1886) . . . 596
A POLITICAL IDEAL (BRANTWOOD, June 26, 1886) . . . 597
UNOBJECTIONABLE THEFT (BRANTWOOD, June 27, 1886) . . 597
RUSKIN'S ILLNESSES (BRANTWOOD, November 6, 1886) . . . 598
THE CHANCES OF REFORM (BRANTWOOD, November 23, 1886) . 598
THE ABOLITION OF RENT (BRANTWOOD, December 11, 1886) . 599
TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN (BRANTWOOD, December 28, 1886) . 599
PICTURES FOR THE POOR (1886?) ...... 600
LIFE ASSURANCE (BRANTWOOD, January 6, 1887) . . . 600
LEADERSHIP (BRANTWOOD, January 7, 1887) . . . .601
HOME RULE (BRANTWOOD, January 16, 1887) .... 602
ART IN MANCHESTER (BRANTWOOD, February 2, 1887) . . 602
THE AMBLESIDE RAILWAY. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, March 1,
1887) 603
THE LAKE DISTRICT (BRANTWOOD, March 19, 1887) . . . 604
THE BUSINESS OF UNIVERSITIES (BRANTWOOD, March 14, 1887) . 605
" BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME." TWO LETTERS (BRANT-
WOOD, May 14 and June 3, 1887) 605
SCOTT AND SCOTSMEN (BRANTWOOD, Whit Tuesday, 1887) . . 606
xvi CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
THE FUNCTION OF THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE " (BRANTWOOD,
June 6, 1887) 607
CHARLES KINGSLEY (BRANTWOOD, 1887) ..... 60Q
"AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A MAN MARRY " (1887) . . . 609
CHEAP BOOKS (BRANTWOOD, 1887) . . . . . . 6lO
OLD FOLKESTONE (FOLKESTONE, September 30, 1887) . . .610
MODERN SELFISHNESS (1887) . . . . . . . 6ll
AN EARTHQUAKE AT FLORENCE (sANDGATE, November 18, 1887) . 6ll
THE TRAFALGAR SQUARE RIOTS (TRAFALGAR SQUARE, December 7,
1887) 612
CHARLES DICKENS (SANDGATE, January 4, 1888) . . .612
CEASING TO BE ENGLISH (SANDGATE, January 9> 1888) . .613
NOVELS AND THEIR ENDINGS (SANDGATE, January 15, 1888) . 6l4
RUSKIN AND HIS TRANSLATORS (SANDGATE, January 25, 1888) . 6l5
A NOTE FROM HIS SECRETARY (1896) ..... 6l6 n.
WELSH SCENERY (SANDGATE, February 27, 1888) . • . .6l6
THE SCENERY OF SCOTT (February 1888) ..... 6l6
BICYCLES (1888) 617
JOURNALISM (1888) . . . . . . . . .617
THE ALPS (BRANTWOOD, March 21, 1889) ..... 617
RUSKIN'S CREED (1889?) • • • • • • • .618
" FROM THE AUTHOR OF ' MUNERA PULVERIS ' " (BRANTWOOD,
May 28, 1889) 618
ST. GEORGE'S FARMS (BRANTWOOD, May 29, 1889) • • • 619
THE WELSH LANGUAGE (1889) ....... 620
ICELANDIC INDUSTRIES (1890) ....... 620
THE FALLS OF FOYERS (BRANTWOOD, August 31, 1895) . .621
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL (BRANTWOOD, December 17, 1896) . 621
RUSKIN HALL (BRANTWOOD, March 1, 1899) .... 622
. IV. RUSKINIANA
ADDRESSES : —
Lectures at Eton: —
THE WING OF THE SWALLOW (May 10, 1873) . . .627
THE BEAK OF THE CHOUGH (May 1 7, 1873) .... 628
THE SPANISH CHAPEL AT FLORENCE (November 27. 1875) . 628
STREAMS OF WESTMORLAND (December 8, 1877) . . . 630
CONTENTS xvii
ADDRESSES : Continued : —
PAGE
PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (July 1877) . . . 631
A CHRISTMAS GREETING (CONISTON, 1881) . . . . . 632
THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY (1878 AND 1882) ..... 634
TO "ACADEMY GIRLS" (February 1884) ..... 639
VIVISECTION (December 1884) ....... 643
EPITAPHS : —
ON H.R.H. THE DUKE OF ALBANY (1884) ..... 647
ON THE REV. OSBORNE GORDON (1885) ..... 647
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC. : —
EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE (1858, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1886) 651
AN OXFORD PROTEST (1874) ....... 653
AN APOLOGY AT A CONCERT (CONISTON, December 3, 1880) . 653
A CHARITABLE APPEAL (CONISTON, 1884) ..... 654
PICTURES FOR JUDGMENT (OXFORD, 1884) ..... 655
CONVERSATIONS : —
WITH SPURGEON (1858, etc.) ....... 659
WITH HOLMAN HUNT IN THE SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO (1869 ) . 66l
IN AN OXFORD DRAWING-ROOM ....... 663
WITH JOWETT AT BRANTWOOD (1883) ..... 664
WITH M. H. SPIELMANN AT BRANTWOOD (1884) . . . . 665
AT FARNLEY (1884) 670
AT SANDGATE WITH AN AMERICAN VISITOR (1887) . . . 671
AT BRANTWOOD WITH AMERICAN VISITORS ..... 673
AT SALLENCHES (1888) ........ 674
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS : —
I. NOTES ON THE BIBLE : —
1. CONDUCT AND FAITH (1856, 1858, 1859) =—
(i.) IN THE OLD TESTAMENT ..... 679
(ii.) AS SPOKEN OF BY CHRIST ..... 680
2. THE MINOR PROPHETS (1882) ..... 684
II. NOTES ON THE CLASSICS: —
1. THE "PLUTUS" OF ARISTOPHANES (1858) . . . 688
2. THE ODES OF HORACE ....... 690
XXXIV. b
xviii CONTENTS
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY AND MARGINALIA : —
PAGE
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY ......... 69?
MARGINALIA : —
A BOOK OF LESSONS IN GREEK ....... 70S
IN A BIRTHDAY BOOK ........ 705
FITZGERALD'S " OMAR KHAYYAM "...... 705
JOWETT'S PLATO ("REPUBLIC," ix.) . . . . . . 706
"MEMOIR OF DR. JOHN FOTHERGILL" ..... 706
ON MILL'S "LIBERTY" ........ 707
ON MILL'S " POLITICAL ECONOMY "...... 708
REJECTED BOOKS ......... 709
ANECDOTA, ETC. : —
Personalia : —
HOW RUSKIN WROTE ......... 713
GRAMMAR . . . . . . . . . .713
RUSKIN AND TYPOGRAPHY (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . .713
AUTHOR AND PRINTERS (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . . .715
AS CHILDREN'S FRIEND (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . . . 7l6
MASTER AND SERVANT (WITH A LETTER) . . . . .717
RUSKIN AND THE BRICKLAYER . . . . . . .719
AS ENGINEER: A MEMORIAL AT FULKING ..... 719
A DAY ON DERWENTWATER . . . . . .719
A DRAWING OF A FEATHER J AND BUTTERFLIES .... 720
A LESSON AT THE WORKING MEN*S COLLEGE . . . .720
A GARDEN PARTY AT MISS INGELOw's ...... 720
TOBACCO ........... 721
AN OLD COLLIER . . . . . . . . .721
RUSKIN AND CARLYLE . . . . . . . .721
RUSKIN AND FREDERIC HARRISON ...... 722
THE EAGLE'S EYE ......... 722
THE BRANTWOOD POST-BAG ....... 722
RUSKIN'S GOOD-BYE ......... 722
Obiter Dicta : —
ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENT ....... 723
ART, IMMORTALITY, AND NATURE ...... 723
" BELIEVING " AND " KNOWING " ...... 723
BOOKS FOR GIRLS ......... 723
CATS IN HEAVEN . . . 723
CONTENTS xix
Obiter Dicta : Continued : —
PAGE
CORY'S "IONICA" . . . . . . . . . 723
THE ETHICS OF " EXPERTISING " ...... 724
THE GUIDES OF LONDON . . . . . . . .724
A PICTURE BY HOGARTH . . . . . . . .724
HOW MUCH DID SHAKESPEARE MEAN ? . . . . . . 724
HOW TO BECOME AN ARTIST . . . . . . . 724
VICTOR HUGO .......... 724
IMMORTALITY .......... 724
KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD ........ 725
THE LEEDS TOWN HALL ........ 725
"RUSKIN ON LUINI AT LUGANO" ..... 725
MODERN WARFARE ......... 725
NOTES ON TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM " ..... 725
SARAH GRAND'S "IDEALA" ... ... 726
SCOTT'S MANUSCRIPTS ..... ... 726
THE ART OF MISQUOTATION ....... 726
THE " PRETTIEST THING IN NATURE " ..... 727
THE TRUE KNIGHT ......... 727
THE TRUE LADY ......... 727
WALT WHITMAN ......... 727
WORK AND RHYME ......... 727
"UNTO THIS LAST" ......... 727
Miscellanea : —
A GHOST STORY ......... 728
A JAPANESE VIEW OF RUSKIN ....... 728
PIRATED RUSKINS ......... 728
RUSKIN AND TURNER ........ 728
TOLSTOY ON RUSKIN ......... 729
RUSKIN'S NAME ON GIOTTO'S TOWER ...... 729
COMPLIMENTARY ADDRESSES TO RUSKIN : —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 732
ON HIS RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS (Christmas 1885) . . . 733
ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY (February 1899) : —
(i.) FROM MEMBERS OF VARIOUS SOCIETIES .... 734
(ii.) FROM MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD . . 735
xx CONTENTS
THIS VOLUME ALSO CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING MINOR RUSKINIANA NOT
INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE LlSTS :
PAGE
LETTER TO HIS FATHER ox GOTHIC NOMENCLATURE (VENICE, OCTOBER 19,
1851) 481
HANS ANDERSEN : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (Si. LAURENT, SEPTEM-
BER 8, 1856) 585
LETTER TO HIS FATHER (MORNEX, FEBRUARY 21, 1863) .... 662
ON WOMEN'S SPHERE : LETTER TO Miss EMILY FAITHFULL (FEBRUARY 1871) 499
LETTERS TO HIS PRINTERS : —
TO MR. CHESTER (OCTOBER 22, 1871) 716
TO MR. JOWETT (VARIOUS DATES) 714, 715
" RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT " : LETTERS TO MR. R. SOMERVELL
(JUNE 1876) xxvi
" INTEGER VIT^E " : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (VENICE, DECEMBER 31,
1876) 691
LETTER TO EDWARD BURXE-JONES (BRANTWOOD, NOVEMBER 2, 1878) . 152
LETTERS ON THE TITLE "ARROWS OF THE CHACE" (1880): —
TO MR. ALLEN (MARCH 21)
TO MR. WEDDERBUHN (APRIL 14, 16, 22 J MAY 4, 14, 19 ; AUGUST 5)
"FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL": A LETTER TO MR. G. ALLEN (MAY 18,
1880) xxxv
A SUNSET : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (BRANTWOOD, AUGUST 6, 1880) 23
THE "CHESTERFIELD LETTER": A DISCLAIMER (HERNE HILL, NOVEM-
BER 13, 1880) 552
LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF "THE ETHICS OF LOVE" (1881) . . . 527
GLASGOW AND ART : A LETTER (JANUARY 1882) 534
LETTER TO G. BIRKBECK HILL (DECEMBER 7, 1883) 12
LETTERS TO Miss GERALDIXE BATEMAN (1883) 716, 717
THE STAGE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION : A LETTER (1888) .... 549
LETTER TO HIS COACHMAX 718
LETTERS IN REPLY TO AUTOGRAPH COLLECTORS 495
REMINISCENCES OF RUSKIN : —
BY THE REV. F. A. MALLESOX 216
ON SCOTT'S NOVELS : BY MR. WEDDERBURN 284
THE XATIOXAL GALLERY REVISITED : BY MR. COOK (1888) . . . 453
ON MR. AND MRS. CARLYLE : BY MRS. L. ALLEN BARKER . . 671
PLATES
RUSKIN AT HIS DESK, 1883 (Photogravure from a photo-
graph by H. R. Barraud) ..... Frontispiece
(Woodcuts by J. D. Cooper, after dratvings by Ruskiri)
PLATE
((Fig. 1) A SUNSET AT ABBEVILLE, 1868. . To face page 22
{(Fig. 2) AN AUGUST SKY AT BRANTWOOD, 1880 . „ „ 22
(PRINTED IN THE TEXT, Fig. 3.) TWILIGHT BETWEEN
VERONA AND BRESCIA, 1845 ..... Page 28
'(Fig. 4) A JULY THUNDER-CLOUD IN THE VAL
D'AOSTA, 1858 . . . . . . To face page 40
\(Fig. 5) AN OLD-FASHIONED SUNSET : HERNE HILL,
1876 40
III. WARWICK CASTLE, 1847 (Photogravure from a sepia
drawing by Ruskin) ......„„ 506
IV. STUDIES IN GROTESQUE (Photogravure from an etched
plate by George Cruikshank after drawings by
Raskin) ........... 566
V. WATENDLATH TARN, 1838 (Photogravure from a
pencil drawing by Ruskin) . . . „ „ 604
VI. OLD FOLKESTONE, 1849 (Photogravure from a pen
and sepia drawing by Ruskin) . . . . ,, ,, 6lO
VII. THE MADONNA AND CHILD (Photograiwe from a
photograph of the piece by Luca della Robbia at
Brantwood) . . . ' . . . „ „ 666
xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACSIMILES
A PAGE OF THE MS. OF " THE THREE COLOURS OF PRE-
RAPHAELITISM " (§§ 18, 19) .... Between pp. 166, 167
A PAGE OF THE MS. (FIRST DRAFT) OF " FICTION, FAIR
AND FOUL" (§43) „ 312, 313
A PAGE OF THE MS. OF THE PREFACE TO " ARROWS OF
THE CHACE" ......... 470,471
FIRST DRAFT OF A LETTER ON "THE MORALITY OF
FIELD SPORTS" (January 14, 1870) „ 498, 499
FIRST DRAFT OF A LETTER ON "THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN
WAR" (October 7, 1870) To face p. 501
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S LIST OF THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS
" BLOTTESQUELY " AMENDED BY RuSKIN .... Page 583
A PAGE OF THE GREEK GOSPELS, WITH ANNOTATIONS BY
RUSKIN To face p. 703
Note. — The drawings by Ruskin given in this volume have not hitherto
appeared. For Figs. 1-5, see p. xxvii. The facsimile of the " Page of the
Greek Gospels" appeared in W. G. Collingwood's Rutkin Relics, 1903, p. 201.
INTRODUCTION TO VOL. XXXIV
THIS volume contains (I.) the lectures of 1884 upon The Storm-Cloud
of the Nineteenth Century, held over for reasons of space from the
last volume. (II.) Such of Ruskin's scattered pieces, and (III.) letters
to the press, as have not been given in previous volumes, together
with (IV.) various Ruskiniana. For the second and third Parts of
the volume, the titles have been retained Avhich Ruskin chose for
similar collections published in his lifetime — On the Old Road and
Arrows of the Chace. In each case, however, the present collection
contains some matter which was not included, and omits some which
was included, in the books thus entitled. It omits much, because
many of the scattered pieces and letters have, in the chronological
arrangement of this edition, been already given in previous volumes.
It includes much which appeared (or was traced) subsequently to the
publication of On the Old Road in 1885 and of Arrows of the Chace
in 1880. Full particulars on these matters will be found in the
Bibliographical Notes (pp. 88, 462).
"THE STORM-CLOUD"
In the Appendix to his Oxford lectures on The Art of England,
Ruskin, being released from his self-imposed restraint,1 mixed a little
vinegar with the oil ; and in the course of general reflections on the
deficiencies of that Art, laid some of the blame upon the atmospheric
conditions in which modern landscape-painters live.2 These remarks
bring us to the first Part of this volume, containing the lectures which
Ruskin gave at the London Institution in February 1884 on "The
Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century." In reading these lectures,
it is well to distinguish Ruskin's account of phenomena from any
theory of their cause. At the time when he first published the lectures,
1 See Vol. XXXIII. p. Ixviii.
2 Ibid., pp. 397 *eq.
xxiv INTRODUCTION
they encountered much ridicule. He had not clearly propounded any
theory, or at any rate not any physical theory, of the phenomena in
question. He contented himself with ascribing them to the Devil ;
and, wrapping himself as it were in the gloom, the Prophet denounced
woe upon a wicked and perverse generation.1 There was, as we shall
presently see, a perfectly sober, solid, material, and accurate sense in
which Ruskin's words were true. But he was not fully conscious of it
himself, or he did not choose to make it explicit; and his readers, not
penetrating to the true cause, were led by Ruskin's prophecies of woe
to throw doubt and derision even upon the phenomena on which he
based them. The newspapers, as he says in his Preface, " scouted his
assertion of radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect as
imaginary or insane" (p. 7).
Nothing could be worse-founded than such criticism. Ruskin was
before all things a close and accurate observer of natural phenomena.
For fifty years, he says, he had made patient and accurately recorded
observations of the sky. Every reader of this edition of his Works
now knows how true this assertion was. Few men have ever studied
so many sunsets, and perhaps no man has ever studied so many
sunrises, as Ruskin. He saw them and he did not let them go; he
" kept them bottled,'1 as he said in an aside in the lecture, " like
his father's sherries " 2 — bottled in minute descriptions in his diary, or
memoranda in his sketch-books. It was in 1871 that he " first recog-
nized the clouds brought by the plague-wind as distinct in character."
The observation was noted in Fors, and is repeated in The Storm-
Cloud (p. 32). From that time forward, he says, his attention "never
relaxed in its record of the phenomena." His diaries are full of it
and many notes upon it occur in his books.8
It is interesting to find that another artist-observer, who had also
been in the habit for many years of noting cloud-phenomena, had been
1 In this connexion, Ruskin's notes on the Minor Prophets may be compared :
see below, pp. 685, 686 (Nos. 6 and 22).
2 Quoted from a notice of the lecture in the Pall Mall Gazette, February 5,
1884. Compare Vol. VII. p. xxvi.
3 See Fors, Letter 53, May 1875 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 317), and General Index.
The extracts from his diary in The Storm-Cloud are as follow : —
Bolton, July 4, 1875 page 30
Coniston, June 22, 1876 36
June 25-6, 1876
July 16, 1876
Aug. 13, 1879
Aug. 17, 1879
Aug. 6, 1880
Sallenches, Sept. 11, 1882
Coniston, Feb. 22, 1883
35
36
37
38
23 n.
70
38
INTRODUCTION xxv
struck, as Ruskin was, by "the storm-cloud of the nineteenth century.11
Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A., in his pleasant volume of country notes,
thus wrote : —
" No doubt you have read the two lectures by Professor Ruskin which
he entitles 'The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.' In them is
described, in the most wonderfully accurate manner, that sort of blight of
bad weather which seems to have fallen upon us in these latter days. His
description of what he calls the plague, or devil, wind is singularly correct ;
its character, persistence, and effects being dwelt on with that marvellous
power of language for which he is so famous. One thing which he points
out as characteristic of this wind is that its baneful nature does not seem
to be influenced by the quarter from which it blows. Most of us can
remember when an east wind was dry and cold, a south wind warm and
wet, a west wind bright and clear, and a north wind bright and cold, but
now we seem to have dark, cold winds persistently recurring from all
quarters alike. The Professor allows that there are intervals of fine and
even lovely weather, but the phenomena is in the ever-returning spells of
this plague wind. A few years ago this wind was of a damp and rainy
character, but certainly during this year and the last it has been one of cold
and drought. In all years it has been attended with darkness and gloom ;
the clouds being, as he describes them, of paltry shapelessness. I have
been noting in my diary for the last two years the state of the weather,
and find that the wind in question has been blowing with its curiously
pertinacious character almost entirely from the north and north-east. Even
when, in the winter, we had the wind from the south, it was not accom-
panied by warmth or rain, some of the severest frosts having taken place
when the wind was south. I have waited in vain for any explanations, or
even recognition, from the meteorological experts of this singular state of
affairs. These gentlemen would, of course, pay little attention to Mr.
Ruskin's lectures, regarding them, no doubt, as unworthy of any serious
scientific consideration ; but for all that I am convinced, from my own
experiences, the Professor never wrote anything that was more true in fact
and description."
And, again, a few days later : —
" I have been particularly struck with the colourless aspect of the
north-east wind lately; there is always a white haze or glare round the
sun, which seems to bleach its rays, and when a few thin beggarly clouds
pass over, it appears, as the Professor so happily expresses it, exactly like
a bad half-crown at the bottom of a basin of soap-suds." *
1 Letters to Marco, by G. D. Leslie, R.A., 1893, pp. 201-203, 209-210.
xxvi INTRODUCTION
Ruskirfs observations of the phenomena of " the storm-cloud " were,
then, perfectly accurate. Nor is there any mystery about their origin.
The Devil is every bit as black as Ruskin painted him ; he is Smoke
— smoke, mixed with damp. " Air currents meet the gaseous products
of combustion, mixed with minute material particles, and are hindered
or diverted in their course thereby, and move forward, dirty, irregular,
and scattered. It would appear as though the upper air did not always
have time to become cleansed each day from the gases and carbon
which rise into it; there is not enough free space at hand, and an
unclean atmosphere blocks what was once the serene expanse of the
sky." The writer from whose recent work on the subject I am quot-
ing,1 adds that industrial statistics fully bear out the date which
Ruskin fixes for the growth of the phenomena in question; the storm-
cloud thickened just when the consumption of coal went up by leaps
and bounds, both in this country and in the industrialised parts of
central Europe. The distance which the blight of the plague-wind will
travel is very great. " On Coronation Night," Mr. Collingwood has
recorded,2 " I saw it trailing from Barrow and Carnforth up the Lime
valley as far as Tebay, always low and level, leaving the upper hills
clear, perfectly continuous and distinct from the mist of water. This
winter (1903), from the top of Wetherlam on a brilliant frosty day, I
saw it gradually invade the Lake District from the south-east; the
horizontal, clean-cut upper surface at about 2000 feet; the body of it
dun and semi-transparent; its thick veil fouling the little cotton-woolly
clouds that nestled in the cover of the Kirkstone group, quite separate
from the smoke-pall; and by sunset it had reached to Dungeon Gill,
leaving the Bow Fell valleys clear. Coming down by moonlight, I
found the dales in a dry, cold fog, and heard that there had been* no
sunshine at Coniston that afternoon." Ruskin, as the conclusion of his
lectures, says that the plague-wind and the storm-cloud will only be
removed when men sincerely pray that " God may be merciful unto us
and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us." The investigations
of meteorologists and economists confirm his words ; it is the Devil of
Smoke that needs to be exorcised, if the earth is to yield her increase.
The text of The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century here given
follows that of the first (and hitherto only) edition. But the sections
have now been numbered ; and in Lecture II., which consisted largely
of Notes on Lecture I., the necessary references have been inserted.
1 The Destruction of Daylight : a Study in the Smoke Problem, by J. W. Graham,
Principal of Dalton Hall, University of Manchester (George Allen, 1907).
2 Ruskin Belies, p. 56. Compare Graham, p. 13.
INTRODUCTION xxvii
The manuscript and corrected proofs of the greater part of The
Storm-Cloud are at Brant wood.
A comparison of these with the final text reveals Ruskin's usual
care in revision. A few notes are added from the MS. (see, e.g.,
pp. 9, 20).
The illustrations, now included in the lecture, are reprinted from
the report of it in the Art Journal. The lecture itself had been illus-
trated by coloured enlargements from Buskin's sketches, which were
thrown on a screen by the lime-light. Some of the enlargements were
made for him by Mr. Arthur Severn (§ 26); others, by Mr. Colling-
wood (§ 40). " Such colours ! such brushes ! such — everything — wait-
ing ! " Ruskin had written to his aide-de-camp, who was set to work
with Messrs. Newman's extra-luminous water-colours.1 For the abstract
of the lecture (by Mr. Wedderburn) in the Art Journal, woodcuts
were made by Mr. J. D- Cooper from the drawings, and these are
here included (Plates I. and II. and Fig. 3).
"ON THE OLD ROAD"
Under this title, Ruskin's miscellanies were collected and edited
for him by Mr. Wedderburn in 1885. It was "A Collection of Mis-
cellaneous Essays, Pamphlets, etc., published 1834-1885," and a large
number of the miscellanies belonged to Ruskin's earlier periods of
literary activity. These earlier pieces have all been printed in the
volumes to which they belonged in point of the time of their com-
position. The present collection comprises fourteen pieces which were
published at various dates between 1871 and 1888. The last of them
is also the last, with two exceptions,2 that Ruskin wrote.
The autobiographical reminiscence entitled My First Editor appro-
priately introduced the volumes of miscellanies issued in 1885, and it
is here again placed first (pp. 93-104). The reminiscence, written in
1878, is of William Henry Harrison, the faithful friend and literary
mentor of Ruskin's early days of authorship. A notice of him has
been given in the Introduction to Ruskin's Poems (Vol. II.), and many
letters from him and to him have been published,3 which illustrate
1 Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1900, p. 375.
2 The Epilogue to Modern Painters (September 1888) and the conclusion of
Pra-teritu (June 1889).
3 See, for instance, Vol. II. p. 27 n. ; Vol. III. p. lii. n. ; Vol. VIII. p. 275 ;
and General Index.
xxviii INTRODUCTION
what Ruskin here says (p. 93) of Harrison's care in reading proofs,
and criticising the author's style.
The piece was written by way of preface to a series of Reminis-
cences by Harrison, published after his death1 in the Dublin University
Magazine (1878). Though not himself an author, except in a very
mild way, Harrison lived near the rose. As editor of Friendship^
Offering and Registrar of the Royal Literary Fund,2 he came across
many men of distinction, in whose reflected radiance he sunned him-
self joyfully, as Ruskin describes.3
My First Editor is one of the most charming of Ruskin's shorter
pieces; it shows the same serenity of temper, the same felicity in
humorous reminiscence, and the same delicate skill in character- draw-
ing that were afterwards conspicuous in Prceterita. It is of peculiar
interest in a connected study of Ruskin's writings, because this chapter
— exhibiting, as it does, so complete a mastery of all his literary arts
and graces — was written almost on the eve of his serious illness in 1878. 4
The second and third pieces in this volume — on The Range of
Intellectual Conception (pp. 107-111) and The Nature and Authority
of Miracle (pp. 115—125) respectively — were papers read by Ruskin
to the Metaphysical Society in 1871 and 1873. A third paper, read
to the same Society in 1875 — on Social Policy — was included by
Ruskin in A Joy for Ever, and has already been printed.6 The
Society was founded by Tennyson and Sir James Knowles in 1869,
its original members including Dean Stanley, James Martineau, R. H.
Hutton, Ward, Bagehot, Froude, Gladstone, Manning, Father Dal-
gairns, Hinton, Henry Sidgwick, and Mark Pattison.6 Ruskin was
1 He had died in August 1874. See Vol. XXIV. p. xxxvi.
z See Vol. XX. p. liv. ; and below, § 10.
8 One of his reminiscences is worth disinterring from the Magazine, because it
is the original authority for an interesting anecdote about Turner : —
" I used to meet Turner at the table of Mr. Ruskin, the father of the art critic.
The first occasion was a few days after the appearance of a notice in the Athenaeum,
of a picture of Turner's which was therein characterised as ' Eggs and Spinach.'
This stuck in the great painter's throat, and as we were returning together in
Mr. Ruskin's carriage Turner ejaculated the obnoxious phrase every five minutes.
I told him that if I had attained to his eminence in art I should not care a rush for
what any one said of me. But the only reply I could get was, ' Eggs and Spinach.' "
(May 1878, p. 546.)
4 See Vol. XXV. p. xxiv.
6 Vol. XVI. pp. 161-169.
6 The full list, with other particulars of the Society, may be read in Alfred
Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by his Son, 1897, vol. ii. p. 167. Tennyson's poem "The
Higher Pantheism " was read at the first meeting of the Society (ibid., p. 168). To
Dalgairns, Ruskin refers in a letter to Professor Norton of November 10, 1870 ; for
Hinton, see Fors C'lavigera, Letter 75, § 10 (Vol. XXIX. p. 67).]
INTRODUCTION xxix
added in 1870. The Society died in 1880— "of too much love,"
according to Huxley; "because after ten years of strenuous effort
no one had succeeded,11 said Tennyson, "in even defining the term
' metaphysics.1 " Ruskin's attempt, in the first of the papers here
printed, if not to define the term, yet to delimit the scope of the
science (p. Ill), was one of the many attempts, equally unsuccessful
in all ages, it would seem, in this direction.
Of the proceedings of the Metaphysical Society, a vivid sketch
was published in 1885 by R. H. Hutton.1 In this he gave imaginary
speeches by several of its members; that put into Ruskin's mouth
is a compost of the actual papers here printed. He describes Ruskin's
" deep-toned, musical voice which dwelt with slow emphasis on the
most important words of each sentence, and which gave a singular
force to the irony with which the speaker's expression of belief was
freely mingled." Of the meeting at which Ruskin read his paper
on Miracle, a lively account was given by Dr. Magee, then Bishop
of Peterborough, in a letter to his wife : 2 —
"... I went to dinner duly at the Grosvenor Hotel. The dinner was
certainly a strangely interesting one. Had the dishes been as various
we should have had severe dyspepsia, all of us. Archbishop Manning
in the chair was flanked by two Protestant bishops right and left —
Gloucester and Bristol and myself — on my right was Hutton, editor of
the Spectator — an Ariari ; then came Father Dalgairns, a very able Roman
Catholic priest ; opposite him, Lord A. Russell, a Deist ; then two Scotch
metaphysical writers — Freethinkers ; then Knowles, the very broad editor
of the Contemporary ; then, dressed as a layman and looking like a country
squire, was Ward, formerly Rev. Ward, and earliest of the perverts to
Rome ; then Greg, author of The Creed of Christendom, a Deist ; then
Froude, the historian, once a deacon in our church, now a Deist ; then
Roden Noel, an actual Atheist and red republican, and looking very
like one ! Lastly Ruskin, who read after dinner a paper on miracles !
which we discussed for an hour and a half! Nothing could be calmer,
fairer, or even, on the whole, more reverent than the discussion. Nothing
flippant or scoffing or bitter was said on either side, and very great
ability, both of speech and thought, was shown by most speakers. In. my
opinion, we, the Christians, had much the best of it. Dalgairns, the
priest, was very masterly ; Manning, clever and precise and weighty ;
Froude, very acute, and so was Greg; while Ruskin declared himself
1 "The Metaphysical Society: a Reunion," in the Nineteenth Century, August
1885, vol. 18, pp. 177 seq. The speech given to Ruskin is on pp. 186, 187.
2 The Life and Correspondence of William Connor Magee, by J. C. Macdonnell,
1890, vol. i. p. 284.
xxx INTRODUCTION
delighted ' with the exquisite accuracy and logical power of the Bishop of
Peterborough.' There is the story of the dinner. Altogether a remark-
able and most interesting scene, and a greater gathering of remarkable
men than could easily be met elsewhere. We only wanted a Jew and a
Mahometan to make our Religious Museum complete."
The next piece (pp. 129, 130) is a Preface which Ruskin wrote for
the daughter of an Oxford friend, Miss A. C. Owen, to her sketches,
republished from the Monthly Packet, of Art Schools of Mediaeval
Christendom (1875).1 The occasional notes which Ruskin appended to
the author's text are added (pp. 130-132) ; and it may be noticed that
good things are often to be found even in remarks thus made casually
by the way. How excellent, for instance, is the characterisation of
Vasari — "an ass with good things in his panniers'" (p. 132).
The fifth paper is on a subject which, in a different connexion,
will meet us again later in the volume, and which at all times enlisted
Ruskin's ardent protest. Thirty years ago, schemes for the Extension
of Railways in the Lake District were much discussed. In 1875
there was no definite scheme before Parliament, but a proposal was
in the air for a continuation of the line from Windermere to Amble-
side, and thence by Rydal and Grasmere and over Dunmail Raise
to Keswick. An actual scheme was produced twelve years later, and
was rejected by Parliament; for which result some share of the
credit must be given to the nucleus of opposition formed at this
earlier date by Ruskin arid the St. George's Guild.2 It was a
Companion of the Guild, Mr. Robert Somervell, who organised the
local protest. At the first whisper of the threatened "assault," Mr.
Somervell drew up a form of petition, and Ruskin called attention to
it, begging all " who may have taken an interest in his writings, or
who may have any personal regard for him," to associate themselves
with the protest. This request was distributed with Fors Clavigera,
and is now reprinted (p. 135). A later slip — now one of the rare
Ruskinian fly-sheets — in which he thanks those who had forwarded
petitions, is also given (pp. 135-136). In 1876 Mr. Somervell's protest
Avas enlarged and issued as a pamphlet, with the Preface by Ruskin
now included among his Miscellanies (pp. 137-143).
1 For a reference to the papers, see Pleasures of England, § 99 n. (Vol. XXXIII.
p. 491).
2 At the later date the local opposition was organised mainly by Mr. W. H.
Hills, of Ambleside, Canon llawnsley, of Crosthwaite, and Mr. Gordon Somervell,
of Windermere.
INTRODUCTION xxxi
Ruskin's Preface takes the form of a destructive analysis, written
with characteristic vigour and point, of the arguments in favour of
the new railway, and, mutatis mutandis, is applicable to other cases in
which the destruction of natural scenery in favoured spots is defended
by what Wordsworth called the " false utilitarian lure." The greatest
happiness of the greatest number demands, it is said, that such scenery
should be made accessible by the cheapest and swiftest transit to the
largest number of persons. Ruskin's answer is that the scenery thus
made accessible would no longer be the same scenery, and that its full
capacity of pleasing the mind and heart would be gone (pp. 140, 141).
In 1887 the scheme for an Ambleside railway was again mooted, and
Ruskin once more intervened in the controversy (p. 603). Perhaps the
ultimate solution, and safety, will be found in the proposal with which
he expressed his agreement in a yet later letter (p. 604) ; namely,
the acquisition or reservation of certain districts as National Trusts.
The manuscript of a portion of Ruskin's Preface (§§ 4, 5) is at
Brantwood. Letters from Ruskin to Mr. Somervell show that the
Preface cost him much trouble. " It will not come right,'1 he said ;
but it did come in the end. "I've done the Preface at last," he wrote
(June 22, 1876), "and I think it stunning. It came to me all of a
heap as I was shaving. Nothing that's worth sixpence ever conies to
me but that way; only sometimes it makes me cut myself.1"
The Three Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism — the piece which comes next
in the volume1 (pp. 147-174) — is reprinted from two consecutive
numbers of the Nineteenth Century (November and December 1878),
where it appeared in the form of an undelivered Oxford lecture (§ 1).
The discourse was suggested to Ruskin by a visit to the late Mr.
William Graham and his daughter at Dunira, where he had found
himself in company of three pictures, typical of different aspects of
the Pre-Raphaelite movement — the " Ecce Ancilla Domini " of Rossetti,
the " Blind Girl " of Millais, and a drawing called " The King's Bridal "
by Burne-Jones. The descriptions of these pictures, with the analysis
of their several aims and characteristics, should be read in connexion
with the first and second lectures in the later course on The Art of
England (1883), in which Ruskin again discussed the meaning of the
Pre-Raphaelite movement and paid a further tribute to the genius of
Burne-Jones.2
1 In the chronological order, the " Introductory " chapter on My First Editor
precedes the Three Colours.
2 See Vol. XXXIII. pp. 270-271, 287 seq.
xxxii INTRODUCTION
Ruskin's visit was further fortunate in suggesting to him an illus-
trative conclusion to his discourse. In his bedroom there chanced to
be a photograph of Jacopo della Quercia's effigy of Ilaria — the piece of
sculpture which, when Ruskin first saw it in 1845, " became at once,"
what it " ever since remained," his " ideal of Christian sculpture." l
In the present paper, it is instanced and described as a typical work
of the perfect masters of art. The reader will find it interesting as a
study in style to compare — as Ruskin does incidentally here (p. 172 n.)
— the descriptions which he wrote at different periods of this tomb —
first in a letter to his father, May 6, 1845 (Vol. IV. p. 122 n.) ; then in
Modern Painters, vol. ii. (ibid., pp. 122-124); next in The Schools of
Art in Florence (Vol. XXIII. pp. 229-232); and finally in this place.
In 1883, in a passage just referred to, he referred to it again. He
had seen the tomb once more in the previous year, and Mr. Colling-
wood, who was then his companion at Lucca, has described his wrath
when some one offered him a plaster mask — a hard, dead caricature —
of his loved lady of Lucca.2 In his autobiography written a few years
later, he referred once again to the impression produced upon him by
the perfect art of " the sleeping Ilaria." 3
The manuscript of the second paper, §§ 11-19, 25, 26, is at Brant-
wood. A page of it is here included in facsimile (§§ 18-19).
The Letters to the Clergy on The Lord's Prayer and the Church
(pp. 191-243) have been printed in one form or another, and in whole
or in part, several times; the collector, interested in such matters, will
find the complicated details unravelled in the Bibliographical Note
(pp. 179-189). The origin of the Letters appears in the text.4 Ruskin
was persuaded to write a series of letters for Mr. Malleson, the vicar
of Broughton-in-Furness, to read at meetings of a local clerical society.
The persuasion was somewhat against his will, but Ruskin had a keen
sense of the obligations of friendly neighbourliness, and he undertook
the task imposed upon him. The principal series of Letters are very
1 Epilogue of 1883 to the second volume of Modern Painters (Vol. IV. p. 347).
2 See " Ruskin' s Ilaria" in Ruskin Relics, pp. 98-99. In connexion with what
Ruskin says, in Vol. XXIII. p. 233, about the affection of the peasantry for Ilaria,
a quotation from the Arundel Society's note on the monument (see below, p. 170 n.)
may be given : " We have often noticed the Lucchesi, on leaving the Duomo by
the door beside which the monument is placed, stoop and press their lips for a
moment to the sweet upturned face." The monument, then placed against the wall
of the north transept, was in 1891 removed to the centre and protected by an
iron railing.
3 Preeterita, ii. §§ 113, 114 (Vol. XXXV.).
* See pp. 191-193.
INTRODUCTION xxxiii
clear and cogent, though the audience to which they were read does
not always seem to have grasped the writer's meaning very easily.1
When the Letters were complete, they were privately printed (at the
instance and cost of the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley) and circulated among
the local clergy. They were next printed by Mr. Malleson in the
Contemporary Review, and in this form excited much controversy.
Mr. Malleson thereupon made a book out of the Letters and various
replies and comments which he received ; and for this book Ruskin
wrote the Epilogue, here included (pp. 215-230). At a later date,
Mr. Malleson published other letters, etc., from Ruskin referring to
the subject (pp. 231-243).
The manuscript of a portion of the Epilogue (§§ 249-262, 266) is
at Brant wood.
The papers on A Museum or Picture Gallery, which come next in
this volume (pp. 247-262), were first printed in the Art Journal in
1880. They are in the form of letters to a friend who was interested
in the formation of a municipal gallery and museum at Leicester.
The last part of the papers was repeated by Ruskin, with some
rearrangement, in Fors Clavigera, as a sketch of the ideal, in one
department, for his own Museum of St. George, and the papers gener-
ally should be read in connexion with the account of that Museum
in Vol. XXX.
The manuscript of §§ 19-21 is at Brantwood ; it shows much re-
touching.
We come next to the most important of the miscellanies — the
series of essays entitled Fiction, Fair and Foul, which were first printed
in the Nineteenth Century (1880, 1881). These were written at irregular
intervals, and are somewhat discursive. The main subjects with which
they deal are two, and Ruskin takes up the one or the other as the
spirit moves him. One of the subjects is that indicated in the title
given to the papers. What is fiction ? he asks (though not till the
last paper). He answers in a passage (pp. 370, 371) in which a Greek
vase is happily taken as a type of a fair fictile thing. His attack is
upon the morbid taint in modern fiction, which he traces in several
pages of acute analysis (pp. 268-282) to the unhealthy conditions of
modern town-life. The study of Gotthelf may be taken as a correc-
tive which he desired to supply, though he was conscious enough that
the novelist of agricultural Switzerland had longueurs and dulness which
1 See the note on p. 197 below,
xxxiv. c
xxxiv INTRODUCTION
readers of the highly-spiced fiction of the day might find intolerable.1
But in the present papers Sir Walter is the model which Ruskin holds
up in contrast, and a considerable part of the essays is taken up with
various studies in Scott's novels. He defines and classifies the novels
in order of merit; explains and defends Scott's use of dialect; draws
out points of character from Sir Walter's Sunday diversions; classifies
his types, and so forth. The drawing up of a class-list of Scott's
novels is a pastime in which most lovers of Sir Walter have indulged,
and Ruskin's list is entitled to respectful attention. He recurs to
the subject in one of the late letters included in the present volume
(p. 607), and discusses some of his preferences in Fors Clavigera? But
the theory which, in Fiction, Fair and Foul, the class-list is meant to
illustrate, breaks down at a crucial point, when brought to the test of
dates. The theory is that Scott's perfect novels were all written in
unclouded days and before physical suffering had come upon him ; and,
though much of his later work was still grand, that yet every pang
in the stomach paralysed the brain. There may be some element of
truth in the diagnosis. But Rob Roy is included by Ruskin in his
series of the perfect and untainted novels ; and yet, as Lockhart relates,
Rob Roy was written in acute pain.3
The second main subject of the essays is a critical comparison
between Wordsworth and Byron, and this occupies the third and fourth
chapters, where also is contained a most interesting disquisition on
the characteristics of good style in literature (pp. 334-337). Ruskin is
not blind to the defects of Byron ; but, writing in a generation when
depreciation of Byron has been the critical fashion, he lays stress on
the native force, the strain of noble feeling, the heroic themes, and the
sense for the great style which are to be counted among the poet's
virtues. In this respect the present essays should be read with the
chapter of Prceterita* in which Ruskin again renders homage to Byron
as one of his masters. Tempted by the then recently published essays in
which Matthew Arnold had extolled Wordsworth, to the depreciation of
Byron, Ruskin, in Fiction, Fair and Foul, goes to the other extreme
and depreciates Wordsworth, to the aggrandisement of Byron. The
passages in which he executes this manoeuvre are admirable examples of
the resources of Ruskin's literary art — sometimes highly charged with
allusive ornament (as in the comparison between the Little Duddon
and the rivers of stormier history to whose music Byron sang, p. 322) ;
1 See Vol. XXXII.
2 Letter 92 (Vol. XXIX. pp. 455, 456).
3 See further, on this point, p. 289 n.
* "Vester, Camenae"; i. ch. viii. (Vol. XXXV.).
INTRODUCTION xxxv
sometimes barbed with gentle irony (as in the reference to Fox How
and Rydal Mount, p. 318). Nor is Ruskin's criticism of Wordsworth in
itself unfair. But, as contained in these papers, it is partial ; much of
what is rightly to be said in praise of Wordsworth had been said
finely by Ruskin elsewhere.1 Ruskin's "bucolic friends11 protested, it
seems, against his present disparagement of Wordsworth (p. 349), and
certainly it has given pain and puzzlement to some fervent admirers of
both writers.2 But Ruskin's appreciation of Wordsworth remains where
it will not soon be forgotten — on every title-page of Modern Painters.
These later essays unsay nothing of what Ruskin had said before in
praise of his master ; 3 but there is no poet, I suppose, more unequal
than Wordsworth, and Ruskin was moved by injustice done, as he
considered, to Byron, to deal out severe justice to Wordsworth's occa-
sional narrowness of view and fatal facility in dropping into bathos.
It may, I think, be held further that in these papers on Fiction, Fair
and Foul, as he says of Fors Clavigera, Ruskin was desirous "to say
things a little piquantly.1' * "Look at my Nineteenth Century article,"
he wrote to Mr. Allen (May 18, 1880); "there's a lot of fun in it,
if people can find it out ! " There are many of us who could wish
that an attack upon George Eliot was an incidental indiscretion, but
Ruskin, as will be seen later on in this volume (p. 558), ruled out
such a suggestion. The judicious reader, in the case of Ruskin's literary,
as in that of his artistic, criticism, finds firmer ground perhaps in his
praises than in his disparagements. Certainly one may read these
brilliant critical essays with profit and with pleasure, without admit-
ting that George Eliot's characters are but "the sweepings of the
Pentonville omnibus," or that the description which some foolish person
seems to have given Ruskin of The Mill on the Floss (p. 282) is a
fitting account of the flight and return of Maggie Tulliver.
The manuscript of Fiction, Fair and Foul, is in the possession of
Mr. Wedderburn,5 who took some of it through the press for Ruskin.
1 See, for instance, Sesame and Lilies, § 70 (Vol. XVIII. p. 124), and General
Index.
8 See the chapters on " Ruskin and Wordsworth " in Canon H. D. Rawnsley's
Ruskin and the English Lakes, 1901.
3 They unsay nothing, but Ruskin in his later writings adds qualifications to
his former praise. See, for instance, a note of 1883 to Modern Painters, vol. ii.,
where he qualifies the remark that Wordsworth is " without appeal " as to the
impressions of natural things on the human mind, by the addendum, "but by no
means as to the logical conclusions to be surely drawn from them" (Vol. IV.
p. 78 n.). In The Pleasures of England (1884), also, there is a vein of gentle sar-
casm in Ruskin's allusions to the poet (see Vol. XXXIII. p. 483 n.).
4 See Prceterita, i. § 55 (Vol. XXXV.).
5 A fair copy (in Ruskin's hand) of the MS. of Chapter I., dated 13th May
1880, is in the possession of Mr. Frederick Hillyard.
xxxvi INTRODUCTION
It includes some unused sheets ; and, in the case of Chapter V., a few
leaves of its first draft, as well as the printed revise, to which
§ 123 was a final addition. Some additional passages are here printed
from the MS. sheets (pp. 395-397).
The tenth and the thirteenth pieces in the volume — separated by
an interval of five years in date— deal with the subject of Usury.
The earlier of them — Usury : a Reply and a Rejoinder (pp. 401-425) —
appeared in the Contemporary Review for February 1880, and grew out
of another article in the same review. In the Epilogue to the Letters
to the Clergy, published in the Contemporary for December 1879, Ruskin
had incidentally referred to a challenge repeatedly addressed to the
Bishop of Manchester in the pages of Fors Clavigera, on the subject
of Usury. The Bishop, Dr. Fraser, had not seen the challenges, of
which he heard for the first time, it seems,1 on caking up the Con-
temporary Review. He forthwith addressed a Reply to Ruskin, who
published it in the Review, with a Rejoinder on his own part. There
the matter rested. The Bishop did not retort ; the Rejoinder, he
wrote to his friend Archdeacon Norris, seemed to him the "ravings
of a lunatic."2 This is a judgment which will hardly commend itself
to disinterested third parties; the Bishop would have done better, I
think, in explaining his reason for leaving Ruskin alone, to have taken
the line which Leslie Stephen tells us that Fawcett adopted in a like
case. There was " an utter absence of any common ground," and
the argument could therefore only have been " at cross purposes." 3
Ruskin's Rejoinder in the present instance is fairly open to criticism
as being somewhat stilted and overweighted ; but raving or incoherent,
it certainly is not. It was the premises which the Bishop had to
destroy, and this was a task which would perhaps have presented some
inconveniences. For the position to which Ruskin sought to pin down
his antagonist, and from which the argument proceeds with ruthless
exactitude, is the condemnation of "usury,11 by the literal text of the
Bible and by the authority of learned divines. The Rejoinder was
written, if hotly, yet not with haste. On the contrary, Ruskin took a
certain malicious glee in polishing his points. " I must give the Bishop
a turn," he said to a friend;4 the "turn" was for roasting.
1 The Bishop cannot have received the private challenge which Ruskin sent
him in addition to the public references in Fors: see Vol. XXIX. p. 95.
2 Life of Bishop Fraser, by Thomas Hughes, p. 305.
3 See Vol. XXVII. p. 378 n.
* At another time he said to a friend who remonstrated with him, " You and
INTRODUCTION xxxvii
The first draft in manuscript of §§ 4—7 is at Brantwood, and bears
witness to the labour of the file — or the spit.
The other paper on Usury (pp. 443-447) was written in 1885
as a Preface to a tract by Mr. R. G. Sillar, one of two brothers
who were equally persistent in tilting against the "accursed thing,"
and by whose pamphlets Ruskin was converted to the same crusade.
In his earlier books, as we have seen,1 Ruskin condemned usury only
in the sense of excessive interest ; subsequently, he came to condemn
all interest as a matter of principle, though he preached its abolition
as a counsel of perfection, not as an immediately practical policy.
His point of view is clearly expressed in a letter, now included in
Arrows of the Chace (below, p. 579), written at the time when the
Preface to Mr. Si liar's pamphlet was forthcoming.
The eleventh paper in this volume (pp. 429-434) is a Preface
which Ruskin wrote in 1883 to a pamphlet by Mr. T. C. Horsfall,
of Manchester, on The Study of Beauty and Art in Large Towns.
Ruskin's acquaintance and correspondence with Mr. Horsfall have
been noted in Fors Clavigera;* the present Preface was in connexion
with the Art Museum which Mr. Horsfall founded and arranged in
Manchester. References to the Museum, for which Ruskin wrote some
Catalogue notes, have been given in Vol. XIII. pp. 616, 625.
The next Preface (pp. 437—440) was written at the end of 1884 for
an English translation of M. Ernest Chesneau's book on The English
School of Painting (1885). Ruskin, as he notes in the Preface (p. 439)>
had already in his Oxford lectures expressed his concurrence with M.
Chesneau's critical judgment, telling his pupils that they might "accept
M. Chesneau's criticism as his own." The life of Turner, which
Ruskin commissioned M. Chesneau to write, and for which he sup-
plied much material, was unfortunately never completed, and Ruskin's
material, as mentioned in a previous volume,3 has disappeared. Many
private letters to M. Chesneau will be found in a later volume of
this edition.
The thirteenth piece in this volume — Usury and the English Bishops
— has already been mentioned, above.
the Bishop are dangling over the pit of hell, and you want me to sprinkle you
with rose-water" (Saturday Review, September 14, 1907).
1 Vol. XVII. p. xcviii.
2 See Vol. XXIX. pp. 149, 589.
» Vol. XIII. p. Ivi.
xxxviii INTRODUCTION
The last piece is a Preface (pp. 451-453), written in April 1888,
to my Popular Handbook to the National Gallei-y. Two notes which
he appended to the text are added (p. 453), together with some
remarks which he made on the occasion of one of his last visits to the
Gallery. With the exception of the Epilogue to Modern Painters and
the last chapter of Prceterita, this Preface is the latest piece of writing
that came from Ruskin^s pen. It now stands not inaptly at the end
of On the Old Road, dealing as it does with the Old Masters in the
National Gallery, where Ruskin's earliest studies had been made.
"ARROWS OF THE CHACE"
The next section of the volume contains a collection of all Ruskin's
letters to the press which have not been given in previous volumes
of this edition. With letters to the press are included some which,
though not addressed to the newspapers, were obviously written for
publication, and a few others not of a personal character which were
published by their recipients. Ruskin's Personal Letters are reserved
for Volumes XXXVI. and XXXVII.
The Public Letters were first collected in 1880 under the title
here retained. In 1878 Mr. R. H. Shepherd had published a Biblio-
graphy of Ruskin in which he succeeded, at the cost of much labour,
in tracing most of Ruskin's contributions to the periodical press,
and this suggested to "An Oxford Pupil" (Mr. Wedderburn) the
printing of the letters themselves in 1880. The two volumes of
Arrows of the Chace then issued contained 152 Letters, etc. Of these,
93 have already been given in previous volumes, while two are reserved
for the Personal Letters. The Letters already given belong for the
most part to the earlier periods of Ruskin's literary activity. In 1890
Mr. Wedderburn made a further collection of the published Letters,
supplementary to those previously given in Arrows of the Chace. The
collection was first printed in a magazine, now defunct, called Igdrasil,
and was afterwards privately issued in a volume entitled RusJciniana.
Of this only ten copies were printed, so that this supplementary
collection has hitherto been little known even among Ruskinians. It
included 144 Letters, etc. Of these, 32 have already been given, while
20 are reserved for the Personal Letters.
Full bibliographical particulars with regard to these matters are
given below (pp. 459-468). It will be seen that the collection in the
present volume comprises (1) 58 Letters from Arrows of the Chace,
INTRODUCTION xxxix
and (2) 84 from Ruskmiana; whilst (3) 50 more are given, as the
result of further gleaning, bringing the total of the present collection
up to 192, and that of the whole collection given in this or earlier
volumes up to 323.1 It may be added that of the 192 in the present
volume, no less than 174 belong to the years 1870 onwards, whereas
in the collection of 1880, 72 belonged to dates earlier than 1870.
The figures just given are interesting in two ways. They show,
first, how voluminous Ruskin was as a contributor to the public press ;
and, secondly, that in his two latest decades (for his literary activity
was at an end by 1890) he was especially prone to write de omnibus
rebus et quibusdam aliis.
What, it may be asked, is the nature of these contributions, what
their place in the corpus of Buskin's work, and what their value?
The questions have been answered by two critics of high authority —
Ruskin himself and Mark Pattison.
Ruskin has defined their nature in one of the happiest of his
titles. Like other happy things, it did not occur at once. Many an
author has confessed that the hardest part of a book was its title,
and Mr. Wedderburn's correspondence enables us to trace Ruskin in
pursuit of the right phrase: —
"(21st March 1880. To MR. ALLEN.) — Mr. Wedderburn has shown
me this morning his plan of arrangement for the volume, or volumes,
of my letters to papers. I don't think my own egotistic pride has
ever been so much gratified as by the look of this bill of fare, and
I leave it to the Editor and to you to arrange everything concerning
its production and ministration to the, I doubt not, hungry public."
And to Mr. Wedderburn he wrote: —
"(14th April.) — For 'Public Letters' I certainly don't care as a
title. It's a lovely afternoon and I must go out, and hope some
mellifluous nomenclature will come into my head in the sun."
"(16^ April.) — Your letters always are a delight to me, and
hearing of this letter-book is a great pride and amusement to me, and
there's not the least fear of your doing anything wrong in it. The
title, of course, I like my finger in, that I may lick it afterwards if
the title's nice, but all the rest I leave with secure comfort to you.
So for your queries. 1. Title, still undetermined, very puzzling, but
will get a nice one, please the pigs. 2. Don't send me any
proofs."
1 This figure excludes twenty-five included in Arrow* or Ruskiniana, but now-
reserved for the Personal Letters.
xl INTRODUCTION
April.) — I've been thinking every morning before I got
up, for a title, but it's very cliffy [difficult]. I'm not sure that I
shall not have to take your plain one after all.1 'Spare Minutes,'
'Spent Shot,' 'Surdis auribus ' are the three best I've got. You
may guess how bad the three worst were. — Ever affiy. yours, J. R."
(Mr. Wedderburn then suggested "A Quiver of Arrows.")
"(9.5th April.) — It is curious that I had thought myself of 'Lost
Arrows,' and your quotation would be delicious, and your objections
to the other names are all sound. Howbeit, I can't resolve this
Sunday morning, and I think the 'Quiver' is a little too poetical. I
incline in spite of the Latin to the ' Surdis.' It's so thoroughly
true, and people would find out and be impressed by that fact.
But I'll think more."
" (4>th May.) — It's very nice having a respite still. I thought of
' Totus in Illis ' and of ' Here and There/ but they're neither
here nor there. I'm not sure my own motto ' To-day ' might do,
but am so busy with Scott. I dare not trust my wits."
"(\4,th May.)— Witt 'Signals on the Old Road' do?"
"(19M May.)— Yes, will think. I like 'The Faggot.' I don't
mind its being called sticks (why not rods ?). I think it will do."
"(5th Aug.) — At last I have got it! 'Arrows of the Chace.' . . .
Preface as soon as I can, but I've a terrific paper on Byron for
September2 which takes everything out of me that's in."
The Letters, then, went forth as arrows shot by an archer in the
fray ; and if often " winged with feathers," certainly they are also,
like those of Hiawatha, " tipped with flint." In his Preface to the
original collection of 1880 — "a model," as was said at the time, " of
pure, sweet, equable English," and concluding with "one of the finest
and loftiest, and at the same time the sweetest and most urbane,
sentences to be found in the whole range of purely personal elo-
quence"3 — Ruskin explains the value which he himself placed upon the
Letters. They were written "with fully provoked zeal," and "expressed
with deliberate precision," " within narrow limits of space and time " ;
they thus contain, said with " the best art he had " at command, " the
indices of nearly everything he cared for most deeply."
Unlike Ruskin's other books published after 1871, Arrows of the
Chace, being collected from the newspapers, was sent to them for
1 " The Public Letters of John Ruskin " was the title under which Mr. Wedder-
burn had given a preliminary account of the collection in the Contemporary Review:
see below, p. 462.
3 Fiction, Fair and Foul, III. ; below, p. 322.
3 Athenaeum, December 18, 1880 : see further below, p. xlvi.
INTRODUCTION xli
notice, and it was fortunate in numbering Mark Pattison among its
reviewers. His estimate of the book, given in a signed article in the
Academy (February 12, 1881), does not materially differ from its
author's. He disputes, indeed, Ruskin's foible of omniscience "from
foreign politics to domestic servants, from war to silk-worms.11 " Upon
art, and all that concerns it," he says, "Mr. Ruskin, however dis-
putable opinions he may have at times broached, stands unrivalled as
a judge, an interpreter, an appreciator. But he cannot claim the
same deferential hearing when he speaks of ... the morality of field
sports, dress, female franchise, Shakspere, dramatic reform, and so on
ad infinitum. It is not that upon any of these things Mr. Ruskin
may not have something good to say, but that he cannot expect to
transfer to any of these subjects the prestige which his special know-
ledge has justly conferred on his opinions on art. . . . When it comes
to speaking of sweeping crossings, the crossing-sweeper is sure to know
a thing or two which we do not know." Having entered this caveat,
Mark Pattison goes on as follows : —
" But what excellent things are scattered up and down these miscel-
laneous letters ! ' A gentleman would hew for himself a log-hut rather than
live in modern houses.' 'You can't have art where you have smoke [; you
may have it in hell, perhaps, for the Devil is too clever not to consume his
own smoke ']. ' So far from wishing to give votes to women, I would
fain take them away from most men.' ' There is only one way to have
good servants; that is, to be worthy of being well served.' 'Good art
cannot be produced as an investment. You cannot build a good cathedral,
if you only build it that you may charge sixpence for admission.' 'We
must recognize the duties of governors before we can elect the men fit to
perform them.' ' While everybody shrinks at abstract suggestions of there
being possible error in a book of Scripture, your sensible English housewife
fearlessly rejects Solomon's opinion when it runs slightly counter to her
own.' 1 Such sparkling bits of aphoristic wit and wisdom are scattered in
profusion over these letters, even those of which the main tenor is para-
doxical or unpractical. Without attempting to deny that many of the social
and economical opinions and proposals here put forward are of this un-
practical character, I think the reader will nevertheless feel himself stirred
and animated in a way in which more sober and well-considered sugges-
tions never move him. Mr. Ruskin does but feel more keenly than the
rest of us those evils which spoil and darken the wholesomeness and beauty
of modern life. When the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together,
there are some spirits who feel the anguish too acutely, and cry out in their
1 For these passages, see Vol. XVII. p. 526 ; below, pp. 521, 499 ; Vol. XVII.
pp. 518, 533 (§ 3), 533 (§ 4), 521.
xlii INTRODUCTION
noble rage that we have but to will it and the evil will disappear. Mr.
Ruskin, like other humanitarians, exaggerates the power of human skill
and energy to cope with natural conditions. . . . But we are quickened
and invigorated for the struggle in which we are all engaged with the
misery of the world, and the sluggish and the selfish may be reached
by Mr. Ruskin's random arrows where homilies and exhortations are all
in vain."
There is a piece of self-criticism in Ruskin's Preface on which
Mark Pattison makes an interesting note. Ruskin says that in his
earlier period, to which most of the Letters in the original collection
belonged, he was "fonder of metaphor, and more fertile in simile," and
"employed both with franker trust in the reader's intelligence1'; he
could then "dismiss in six words forms of art on which I should now
perhaps spend half a page of analytic vituperation" (p. 470). Mark
Pattison's comment is this: —
"What has happened to Mr. Ruskin — the drying up of the richest
source of poetical expression, the power of metaphor — is only what has
happened to all men of the gifted tongue who have lived long enough,
and to the greatest poets most conspicuously — witness Milton and Words-
worth. But whoever before Ruskin knew it of himself and dared to say
so ? The unfortunate effect upon us of ageing is that our feeling of the
evil of life, and the mistakes of the managers of affairs, continues to be
no less intense than it was in our youth, while the power of venting our
indignation in veiled sarcasm, or flashing figure, is no longer at command.
We are thus tempted to take refuge in expressions of direct scorn and
contempt, which directness is but the sign and mark of intellectual failure
— failure, not in judgment, but in power of expression. We all regard
'restoration' with horror, and are aghast at the havoc it has made among
our antiquities. But surely the cause of the beautiful and the venerable
is not served by outbreaks such as 'All restoration is accursed architects'
jobbery, and will go on as long as they can get their filthy bread by such
business.' Another such burst of splenetic irritation against John Stuart
Mill is only to be palliated by the apology which the editor offers in a
note — viz., that it occurs not in a published letter sent by the writer to
the papers, but in a private communication to a friend."
The greater part of the Letters collected in the present volume belong,
as we have seen, to Ruskin's later period, in which the mood of
splenetic irritation becomes more frequent. It should be remembered
that, as his influence became more widely spread, he was the more
invited to express his opinion on this, that, and the other subject.
Partly in good nature, and partly in self-confidence, he was easily
INTRODUCTION xliii
"drawn," and allowed himself, as he says in one of the Letters, to
be " plagued about things in general.11 x That he still wrote " with
fully provoked zeal" need not be doubted; but in these latter years
the stimulus often came from without, not from within. In such
cases he would speed his arrow, sometimes in hasty scorn, sometimes
to tease or startle. There was a great hubbub in the critical press
when, in amending Lord Avebury's list of the "Best Hundred Books,"
Ruskin "put his pen blottesquely " through the name of Gibbon.
Solemn critics informed Ruskin that "to omit Gibbon is to leave a
gap in your knowledge of the history of the world which nothing else
can fill.112 As if Ruskin were not aware of that fact! He knew his
Gibbon well, and had annotated it page by page. He quarried from
the marvellous mine freely; but he was not going to abstain from his
fling at Gibbon's epithets, nor was he persuaded that every book
indispensable to a scholar is necessarily to be included among the
selection for a general reader. Here, as elsewhere, Ruskin's explosions
of opinion are personal, sincere, and therefore interesting to any
student of his life and work.
They are, also, seldom expressed except with characteristic vigour
or felicity. The later letters are, as we have seen, often more hasty,
and, as Ruskin says, less rich in metaphor than the earlier. But his
art of expression is still there. It is noteworthy that of the "spark-
ling bits of aphoristic wit and wisdom" quoted by Mark Pattison, a
fair proportion comes, in fact, from letters of the later period of
Ruskin's style; and the list might be extended from other letters
later still, which were not before Pattison at the time. How happy,
for instance, is his rule for critics — to "praise the living and be just
to the dead " (p. 559) ; or his satire upon those who " think to refresh
themselves from the foundry by picnic in a lime-kiln" (p. 571). His
description of the Derbyshire glens is as vivid as anything he ever
wrote (p. 572). His excursions into politics were random ; but he put
very happily some facts about Ireland which professional politicians do
not always remember (p. 582); and the bitterness of his diatribes
against the moral standards and mechanism of the age is often re-
deemed by the finished art in the vituperation (see, e.g., some phrases
on pp. 594, 604). One likes to think that even in his moments of
greatest anger and seeming despair, he had the craftsman's or the
swordsman's pleasure in a sentence well pieced or a blow deftly struck.
1 See below, p. 598.
1 "Ruskin's Judgment of Gibbon and Darwin," in the New York Critic, May 1,
1886.
xliv INTRODUCTION
His old friend, Dr. John Brown, was of that conviction. "You must
have pleasure sometimes in your work,'1 he wrote, " though fierce
indignation not seldom lacerates your heart. Did you not like that
sentence beginning * A shepherd maid 1 and ending with ' the ruins
of the world ' ? "" Dr. Brown was writing of a passage in The Bible
of Amiens;1 but a like felicity, or force, of language appears on many
a page of the Arrows, and habitual energy of diction, as has been well
said,2 was "never yet practised by a melancholy man, and must have
armed Ruskin himself, indignant, insurgent, menacing, against that
profounder calamity, sadness.11
Very few are the pages of this collection from which things as good
could not be culled. The verdict of another critic of the original
Arrows of the Chace may be given : —
"There is not a letter in the book of which it can be said that it is
not interesting ; not one but is distinguished by some notable feature, as a
touch of fine and pleasant wit, or a stout stroke of satire, or a piece of
wisdom nobly thought and luminously phrased, or a passage of sonorous
and splendid rhetoric, or a fling of whimsical temper. To follow their
author through his many moods of irony and reproof, of indignation and
of calm, of fun and suggestiveness and scorn, is an intellectual exercise
not only as agreeable as can be imagined, but as serviceable also. . . . Mr.
Ruskin has much to say, and he knows so well how to say it that people
are apt to value his sayings even more for their manner's sake than for
the sake of their matter. It is the common lot of most of those who deal
in prose to be either useful at the expense of beauty, or ornamental at
the cost of serviceableness. With Mr. Ruskin it is otherwise. To him
the instrument of prose is lyre and axe, is lamp and trowel, is a brush to
paint with and a sword to slay, in one. A great artist in speech, he is
a working exemplification of the theory which holds that English prose
is of no particular epoch, but that in all its essentials, and allowing for the
influence of current fashions of speech, it is one and the same thing with
Shakespeare and with Addison, with Bunyan and with Burke, with Browne
and Bacon, and with Carlyle and Sterne. There are few manners in litera-
ture at once so affluent and so subtle, so capable and so full of refinement,
as that of the author of Modern Painters. The reason why it is felt to be
so is, we take it, that Mr. Ruskin, in fact, is not only great as a writer,
but great as an intelligence and as a man. To a mind extraordinarily
vigorous yet subtle, to an imagination unwontedly rich and vivid and
1 Chapter ii. § 4 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 55) : see Letters of Dr. John Brown, 1907,
p. 275.
* In a review of Brown's letters, in the Athenceum.
INTRODUCTION xlv
splendid, he adds the precious attributes of a noble heart, a sweet and
earnest temper, and a boundless goodwill. These attributes are perceived
in his work and impart to it, however questionable its aim and however
dubitable its conclusions, a certain fine and human quality of reality,
which is one secret of its prodigious force." l
Whether this estimate be accepted or not, it is of historical interest
in this edition of Huskies Works as marking the assured place which
he had now won for himself from a leading critical organ, at one time
very grudging to his literary claims.
The arrangement of the Letters in the present collection is, in
accordance with the general rule of the edition, chronological ; but the
chronological list of contents at the beginning of the volume (p. xi.)
is supplemented by another in which the Letters are grouped together
under their several subjects (p. 475). The list of subjects is, as Ruskin
says, a sort of index to his interests, and most of them have been
dealt with more elaborately in earlier volumes. Among the hobbies
which the Letters illustrate is chess. From his boyhood to the verge
of extreme old age, he was a great lover of the game. An attentive
reader might have guessed as much from analogies drawn from chess
in Ruskin's books, and occasional references to masters of the game.2
He himself played, says a friend, " with great rapidity and considerable
brilliancy. At one time he was a constant visitor to the Maskelyne
and Cooke entertainment, where on at least one occasion he took a
hand in the rubber with * Psycho ' ; and whenever a new chess-playing
automaton made a public appearance he would endeavour to try con-
clusions with it. Indeed, it was a matter of pride to him that he had
obtained more than one victory over the famous Mephisto at the time
when it was performing at the Crystal Palace with considerable eclat." z
He was a Vice- President of the British Chess Association, and " en-
dowed the national tournaments with a set of his works — a prize much
coveted by the competitors and valued by the winners."4 Ruskin was
impatient, as may be gathered from the letters in this volume, with
an opponent who did not play quickly. The squares on Ruskin's own
board were coloured red and green. He was fond also of playing by
correspondence ; Mr. Macdonald, the drawing-master of his school at
1 Athenceum, December 18, 1880. The reviewer was W. E. Henley.
a See Vol. VI. p. 85 ; Vol. XIII. pp. 259, 272 ; Vol. XIX. p. 466 ; Vol. XXXII.
p. 492.
* John Ruskin, by M. H. Spielmann, p. 150. Compare a letter to C. E. Norton
of February 15, 1874 (Vol. XXXVII.).
4 From the Chess Column of the Westminster Gazette, January 27, 1900.
xlvi INTRODUCTION
Oxford, was often his antagonist in that sort.1 His library contained
a corner of books on the subject (see below, p. 699).
The manuscript of Raskin's public letters, which were sent to the
press, is naturally not available; but he often took great pains with
their composition, and rough drafts of some of them are contained in
his note-books. Two pages from these are given in facsimile, pp. 498,
501 ; whilst his " blottesque " emendation of Lord Avebury's list of the
"Best Hundred Books" is reproduced from the Pall Mall Gazette
(p. 583).
"RUSKINIANA"
The last part of this volume is devoted to a collection of Rus-
kiniana.
The first section of these contains Reports of various lectures or
Addresses which have not been included in previous volumes (pp. 627-
644).
These are followed by the Epitaphs which Ruskin composed for
monuments to his friend and pupil, Prince Leopold (Duke of Albany),
and to his friend and tutor, the Rev. Osborne Gordon (pp. 647, 648).
The next section collects a number of Circulars and Notices issued
at various times by Ruskin (pp. 651-655).
The fourth section (pp. 659-676) brings together from various sources
a number of Conversations with Ruskin which have been recorded in
print.
In the following sections we enter, as it were, into Ruskin's study
and library. His Note-books and Diaries are very voluminous, and it
has been thought that some typical extracts from the former might
be interesting. No author has preached more usefully than Ruskin on
the duty of careful reading, and the Notes here given show him at
practice, reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting. To the
constancy of his Bible studies, repeated reference has been made in
the Introductions to these volumes ; while the references supplied
under the] text show how the language of the Bible mingled perpetually
with his thoughts. The Notes on the Bible, printed in this volume
(pp. 679-688), are samples of studies of the kind which occur in
almost all his note-books and diaries. " Once in his rooms at Oxford,"
says Mr. Collingwood,2 "I remember getting into a difficulty about
the correct quotation of some passage. ' Haven't you a concordance ? '
1 See Vol. XXL p. xxvi.
2 ItusJcin Relics, p. 211.,
INTRODUCTION xlvii
I asked. 'I'm ashamed to say I have/ he said. I did not quite
understand him. 'Well,1 he explained, 'you and I oughtn't to need
Cruden ! ' ' Ruskin, it is safe to say, seldom found the need. He
habitually quoted from memory; and it is very rarely that, in editing
these volumes, we have found his memory even at trivial fault. Together
with the Bible, Ruskin made constant, and generally a daily, study
of some Greek or Latin author, or of Dante; and here, again, he
annotated as he read.1 The Notes on the Plutus of Aristophanes
(pp. 688-690), which he read in 1858 (as he tells us in Prceterita*),
show the manner in which he read. His selection of English titles
for the Odes of Horace is added (pp. 690-694), together with a few
notes for his intended commentary, already mentioned.8
An account of RtiskiiCs Library follows (pp. 697-702), and this
is supplemented by such of his Marginalia (pp. 703-709) as have
found their way into print, together with a few additions.
Next comes a section of Ruskiniana devoted to a collection of
personal Anecdotes (pp. 713-722), Obiter Dicta (pp. 723-727), and
Miscellanea (pp. 728, 729).
Once when his talk was rather confidential, Mr. Collingwood said,
" Never mind, Fm not Boswell taking notes.1" " I think," he replied,
"you might do worse !"4 Ruskin had many note-takers among his
friends, disciples, and casual acquaintances. For many years Ruskiniana,
of any sort, were accounted "good copy" by the newspapers; and
few authors have had their sayings and doings so minutely chronicled.
This section of our volume does not pretend to be exhaustive. Many
additional pages would have been required for the inclusion of every
story, reminiscence, and casual remark which has appeared in print in
connexion with Ruskin. But it is believed that this edition includes,
either in the present collection or in other volumes, all the Ruskiniana
that are of any interest or throw any light on the author's character.
Finally, the text of various addresses presented to Ruskin is added
(pp. 733-735).
The illustrations in the volume remain to be noticed. The frontis-
piece is a photograph, by H. R. Barraud, of Ruskin. It is one of the
1 He made similar entries in his note-books on Homer, Pindar, Plato, Xeuophon,
Pausanias, Livy, Pliny. Analyses of Dante and indices of topics are frequent in
them. He kept also a series of note-books in which he noted passages in the
classics or other authors under different headings. There is thus a "Topics"
book, a "Myth" book, a "Places" book, and a "Grammar" book.
2 Vol. iii. § 22 (Vol. XXXV.).
3 Vol. XXXIII. p. xxiii.
4 Ruskin Relics, p. 11.
xlviii INTRODUCTION
photographs to which Ruskin refers below (p. 562) as " the first that
expressed what good or character there is in me for my own work."
The illustrations to The Storm,-Cloud (Plates I. and II.) have been
mentioned already (p. xxvii.). The others are introduced to illustrate
various passages in the Letters or Conversations. Ruskin's drawing of
Warwick Castle (Plate III.) was made in 1847; it is in sepia (18x22£).
The Plate (IV.) of Studies in the Grotesque was etched for him by
George Cruikshank, and was perhaps intended for use in Stones of
Venice, where two of the figures were separately used ; for further
particulars, see p. 566. In connexion with Ruskin's defence of the
Lake Country, an early drawing (1838) of a well-known spot, Watend-
lath Tarn, is introduced (Plate V.); it is in pencil (8f X 10$ ). The
drawing of Folkestone done in 1849 in pen and sepia (11 X 18) —
Plate VI. — shows the place in the old days which Ruskin remembered
and regretted (pp. 610, 673). These two drawings, and that of
Warwick Castle, are in the collection of Mr. B. B. Macgeorge, of
Glasgow, by whose kindness they are here reproduced. The last
Plate (VII.) shows the piece of faience which in Ruskin's later years
occupied the central position over the mantelpiece in his study ; he
attributed it to Luca del la Robbia, but Mr. Fairfax Murray, who
obtained the piece for him, assigned it to Andrea (p. 666).
E. T. C.
I
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
(1884)
XXXIV.
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY.
TWO LECTURES
DELIVERED AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION
FEBRUARY 4TH AND IITH, 1884.
BY
JOHN RUSKIN,
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI
COLLEGE, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART, OXFORD.
GEORGE ALLEN,
SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT.
1884.
[Bibliographical Note. — The book entitled The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth
Century was first written for two lectures delivered at the London Institu-
tion on February 4 and 11, 1884.
The first lecture was fully reported in the Times of February 5, 1884,
and in the Pall Mall Gazette of the same date (by Mr. Cook), and less
fully in several other newspapers (e.g., the Standard). The second lecture,
which it had been understood was to be only a repetition of the first,
was not reported. The first lecture was also fully reported (by Mr.
Wedderburn) in the Art Journal of April 1884, N.S. No. 40, pp. 105-
108 ; and this report was illustrated by woodcuts, made by Mr. J. D. Cooper
from Mr. Severn's enlargements of Ruskin's drawings. In the Art Journal
the titles of the " Sunset at Abbeville" (now Fig. 1 on Plate I.) and the
Herne-Hill Sunset (Fig. 5 on Plate II.) were transposed. These woodcuts
are given in the present edition. A very few copies of them were printed
separately for binding up with the edition of The Storm-Cloud next described.
ISSUE IN PARTS
The lectures were first issued in two Parts, small quarto, in May 1884,
3000 copies of each being printed.
Part I. — The title-page was as given here (p. 3), except that instead
of the rose there was " Lecture I." On the reverse was the imprint,
' ' Printed by | Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Limited, | London and Ayles-
bury." Preface, pp. iii.-vi. ; Lecture, pp. 1-63.
Issued in buff-coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page (enclosed in
a plain ruled frame) reproduced upon the front. On this title-page the
date " Monday, February 4th " was added below " Lecture I."
Part II. — The title-page was as before, except for the words " Lecture II.
| Monday, February llth." On the reverse was the imprint, " Printed by
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury." A half-title
preceded the title-page. " Lecture II.," pp. 65-142 ; half-title " Index,"
p. 143 ; Index (by Mr. Wedderburn), 145-152 (with the imprint repeated
at the foot of p. 152). Title-page and Contents to the complete work
were stitched in at the end of the Part.
Issued as before ; the words " Price Three Shillings the Two Lectures. |
(Not sold separately)" being added below the frame.
ISSUE IN VOLUME FORM
This may still be called First Edition, as it was made up of remainder
sheets of the separate Parts.
The title-page is as here given (p. 3) ; on the reverse is the imprint,
6 THE STORM-CLOUD
" Printed by | Hazel! , Watson, and Viney, Limited, | London and Ayles-
bury." The half-title and title-page are not counted in the pagination.
Contents, p. i. ; Preface, pp. iii.-vi.
Issued in green or brown cloth boards, lettered across the back : " Ruskin
| Storm | Cloud | 1884." Price 4s. 6d. The edition is still current.
An unauthorised American edition was issued at 50 cents.
Reviews of the first lecture were numerous. See, for instance, the
St. James's Gazette, February 5 ; Daily News, February 6, 1884 (noticed
by Ruskin, p. 77), August 8, 1884 ; Standard, February 6 ; Whitehall
Review, February 7 ("Sin and the Weather"); Knowledge, February 8,
1884 (vol. vi. p. 81); World, February 13, 1884.
A note in the World (February 20, 1884) states that Ruskin, "on the
second delivery of his lecture, inadvertently raised a perfect storm-cloud
of hisses and applause by speaking of the mountain which faces his
residence at Coniston as the grand 'Old Man.' When the tumult had
subsided, the lecturer rebuked his audience (amongst whom was Miss
Gladstone) for their display of feeling ; but he was unable to eradicate the
confusion from their minds ; and when he came (§ 35) to describe the
grand Old Man as looking quite frantic, his added 'I mean the mountain'
was only just in time to save a second outburst."
In the present edition, the sections have been numbered.
The words Lecture I. and the date have been added on p. 9. And
the date on p. 42.
Ruskin's references in Lecture I. to Notes in Lecture II. were numerical
" 1 " to " 19," but the references to Notes 17 (in § 21) and 20 (in § 38)
were omitted. In this edition references to the Note, section, and page
are given ; and similarly in the Notes (in Lecture II.), references back to
the several pages in Lecture I. are given, and occasionally the words
commented upon (which Ruskin in his text did not always quote) are
supplied.
A few typographical errors in the Greek in §§ 6, 54 have been cor-
rected ; and references to Ruskin's other books have been adjusted to
the present edition. In § 57, line 2, "atmosphere" is a correction for
" atmospheric " ; and in § 65 " On the Change," etc., a correction for
"On the Changes."]
PREFACE
THE following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of
more imperative and quite otherwise directed work,1 contain
many passages which stand in need of support, and some,
I do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always
prefer to receive openly from the better knowledge of
friends, after setting down my own impressions of the
matter in clearness as far as they reach, than to guard
myself against by submitting my manuscript, before publi-
cation, to annotators whose stricture or suggestion I might
often feel pain in refusing, yet hesitation in admitting.
But though thus hastily, and to some extent incautiously,
thrown into form, the statements in the text are founded
on patient and, in all essential particulars, accurately re-
corded observations of the sky, during fifty years of a life
of solitude and leisure; and in all they contain of what
may seem to the reader questionable, or astonishing, are
guardedly and absolutely true.
In many of the reports given by the daily press, my
assertion of radical change, during recent years, in weather
aspect was scouted as imaginary, or insane. I am indeed,
every day of my yet spared life, more and more grateful
that my mind is capable of imaginative vision, and liable
to the noble dangers of delusion which separate the specu-
lative intellect of humanity from the dreamless instinct of
brutes : but I have been able, during all active work, to
use or refuse my power of contemplative imagination, with
as easy command of it as a physicist's of his telescope : the
times of morbid are just as easily distinguished by me from
1 [Namely, the publication of the Oxford lectures on The Art of England,
Vol. XXXIII.]
7
8 THE STORM-CLOUD
those of healthy vision, as by men of ordinary faculty
dream from waking; nor is there a single fact stated in
the following pages which I have not verified with a
chemist's analysis, and a geometer's precision.
The first lecture is printed, with only addition here and
there of an elucidatory word or phrase, precisely as it was
given on the 4th February. In repeating it on the llth,
I amplified several passages, and substituted for the con-
cluding one, which had been printed with accuracy in most
of the leading journals, some observations which I thought
calculated to be of more general interest. To these, with
the additions in the first text, I have now prefixed a few
explanatory notes, to which numeral references are given in
the pages they explain, and have arranged the fragments
in connection clear enough to allow of their being read
with ease as a second Lecture.
HERNE HILL, 12/A March, 1884.
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
LECTURE I
(Delivered on February 4, 1884)
1. LET me first assure my audience that I have no arriere
pensee in the title chosen for this lecture. I might, indeed,
have meant, and it would have been only too like me to
mean, any number of things by such a title ; — but, to-night,
I mean simply what I have said, and propose to bring to
your notice1 a series of cloud phenomena, which, so far as
I can weigh existing evidence, are peculiar to our own
times ; yet which have not hitherto received any special
notice or description from meteorologists.
2. So far as the existing evidence, I say, of former
literature can be interpreted, the storm-cloud — or more
accurately plague-cloud, for it is not always stormy — which
I am about to describe to you, never was seen but by now
living, or lately living eyes. It is not yet twenty years
that this — I may well call it, wonderful — cloud has been,
in its essence, recognizable. There is no description of it,
so far as I have read, by any ancient observer. Neither
Homer nor Virgil, neither Aristophanes nor Horace, ac-
knowledge any such clouds among those compelled by
Jove. Chaucer has no word of them, nor Dante;2 Milton
none, nor Thomson. In modern times, Scott, Wordsworth,
and Byron are alike unconscious of them ; and the most
observant and descriptive of scientific men, De Saussure,
1 [Here, as always, a comparison of the final text with its earlier stage* shows
Ru skin's chastening upon revision. The proofs read : " . . . bring to your notice
no pictorial images of political gloom, but only a series . . ."]
* [See Note 1 ; below, § 41, p. 42.]
9
10 THE STORM-CLOUD
is utterly silent concerning them. Taking up the traditions
of air from the year before Scott's death, I am able, by
my own constant and close observation, to certify you
that in the forty following years (1831 to 1871 approxi-
mately— for the phenomena in question came on gradually)
— no such clouds as these are, and are now often for
months without intermission, were ever seen in the skies
of England, France, or Italy.
3. In those old days, when weather was fine, it was
luxuriously fine; when it was bad — it was often abomin-
ably bad, but it had its fit of temper and was done with it
— it didn't sulk for three months without letting you see the
sun, — nor send you one cyclone inside out, every Saturday
afternoon, and another outside in, every Monday morning.
In fine weather the sky was either blue or clear in its
light; the clouds, either white or golden, adding to, not
abating, the lustre of the sky. In wet weather, there
were two different species of clouds, — those of beneficent
rain, which for distinction's sake I will call the non-electric
rain-cloud, and those of storm, usually charged highly with
electricity. The beneficent rain-cloud was indeed often ex-
tremely dull and grey for days together, but gracious never-
theless, felt to be doing good, and often to be delightful
after drought; capable also of the most exquisite colouring,
under certain conditions ; l and continually traversed in clear-
ing by the rainbow: — and, secondly, the storm-cloud, always
majestic, often dazzlingly beautiful, and felt also to be
beneficent in its own way, affecting the mass of the air
with vital agitation, and purging it from the impurity of
all morbific elements.
4. In the entire system of the Firmament, thus seen
and understood, there appeared to be, to all the thinkers
of those ages, the incontrovertible and unmistakable evi-
dence of a Divine Power in creation, which had fitted, as
the air for human breath, so the clouds for human sight
and nourishment ; — the Father who was in heaven feeding
1 [See Note 2 ; § 42, p. 43.]
LECTURE I 11
day by day the souls of His children with marvels, and
satisfying them with bread, and so filling their hearts with
food and gladness.1
Their hearts, you will observe, it is said, not merely
their bellies, — or indeed not at all, in this sense, their
bellies — but the heart itself, with its blood for this life,
and its faith for the next. The opposition between this
idea and the notions of our own time may be more accu-
rately expressed by modification of the Greek than of the
English sentence. The old Greek is —
e/ATrtTrXwj/ Tooffis KOI evcppoo'vvris ra? Kap6ia$ f]/
filling with meat, and cheerfulness, our hearts.
The modern Greek should be —
€fJiTrnr\u>v ave/mov KOI a(j)po<rvvtj$ raf ydo-repa?
filling with wind, and foolishness, our stomachs.
5. You will not think I waste your time in giving you
two cardinal examples of the sort of evidence which the
higher forms of literature furnish respecting the cloud-
phenomena of former times.
When, in the close of my lecture on landscape last year
at Oxford,2 I spoke of stationary clouds as distinguished
from passing ones, some blockheads wrote to the papers to
say that clouds never were stationary.3 Those foolish letters
were so far useful in causing a friend to write me the
pretty one I am about to read to you, quoting a passage
about clouds in Homer which I had myself never noticed,
though perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in the Iliad.
In the fifth book, after the truce is broken, and the
1 [Acts xiv. 17.]
1 [See Art of England, § 191 (Vol. XXXHI. p. 392).]
3 [The reference is to some correspondence in the Pall Mall Gazette, which
followed its report of Raskin's sixth lecture on The Art of England. Sir Robert
Rawlinson (November 21), in an interesting letter (headed " Clouds, Poets, and
Painters"), said that "Mr. Ruskin never saw, other than in imagination, a fair-
weather cloud remain motionless," and cited Antony and Cleopatra, Act iv. sc. 12.
Another correspondent ("L," November 24) referred to "Mr. Ruskin's extraordi-
nary remarks on stationary clouds."]
12 THE STORM-CLOUD
aggressor Trojans are rushing to the onset in a tumult of
clamour and charge, Homer says that the Greeks, abiding
them, "stood like clouds." My correspondent, giving the
passage, writes as follows : —
"Sm, — Last winter when I was at Ajaccio, I was one day reading
Homer by the open window, and came upon the lines —
'AAA' ep-evov, ve<f>fXr)(riv eoi/cores, as TC Kpovtwv
eo-nytrev «r' aK/ooTroAouriv opea-criv,
s, o<f>p' evoyo-t juevos Bopeao KCU a
dve/ia>v, otre vefaa
TlvoiQ(riv Xiyvpfjfri SuwKiSvofriv acvres '
Aavaoi
e But they stood, like the clouds which the Son of Kronos establishes in
calm upon the mountains, motionless, when the rage of the North and of
all the fiery winds is asleep.' As I finished these lines, I raised my eyes,
and looking across the gulf, saw a long line of clouds resting on the top
of its hills. The day was windless, and there they stayed, hour after hour,
without any stir or motion. I remember how I was delighted at the time,
and have often since that day thought on the beauty and the truthfulness
of Homer's simile.
" Perhaps this little fact may interest you, at a time when you are
attacked for your description of clouds.
"I am, sir, yours faithfully,
"G. B. HILL." 2
6. With this bit of noonday from Homer, I will read
you a sunset and a sunrise from Byron. That will enough
express to you the scope and sweep of all glorious litera-
ture, from the orient of Greece herself to the death of the
last Englishman who loved her.3 I will read you from
Sardanapalus the address of the Chaldean priest Beleses
1 [Iliad, v. 522-527.]
* [George Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L. ; for his winter sojourn in Corsica (1882-1883),
see Lettert of George Birkbeck Hill, 1906, pp. 145-146. He was an early admirer
of Ruskin's books : see ibid., p. 60. Ruskin's reply to this letter was as follows : —
"BRANTWOOD, 7th Dec. '83.
" MY DEAR SIR, — I've just time to thank you, by this post — but please
let me know if your address is permanent. I had totally forgot the passage !
— but I don't think the young generation will teach me much about
clouds ! It is a curious feeling in old age. Homer has his word about
that too, hasn't he? — that nobody knows one's old sinews. — Ever grate-
fully yours, J. RUSKIN."
(Talks about Autographs, by George Birkbeck Hill, 1896, p. 26, where the letter
is given in facsimile).]
3 [See Note 3 ; § 3, p. 44.]
LECTURE I 18
to the sunset, and of the Greek slave, Myrrha, to the
morning.
" The sun goes down : methinks he sets more slowly,
Taking his last look of Assyria's empire.
How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,1
Like the blood he predicts.2 If not in vain,
Thou sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise,
I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray
The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble
For what he brings the nations, 't is the furthest
Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm !
An earthquake should announce so great a fall —
A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk
To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon
Its everlasting page the end of what
Seem'd everlasting ; but oh ! thou TRUE sun !
The burning oracle of all that live,
As fountain of all life, and symbol of
Him who bestmvs it, wherefore dost thou limit
Thy lore unto calamity ? 3 Why not
Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine
All-glorious burst from ocean ? why not dart
A beam of hope athwart the future years,
As of wrath to its days ? Hear me ! oh, hear me !
I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy servant —
I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall,
And bow'd my head beneath thy mid-day beams,
When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd
For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee,
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee,
And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd — but
Only to thus much. While I speak, he sinks —
Is gone — and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge,
To the delighted west, which revels in
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is
Death, so it be but glorious? 'T is a sunset;
And mortals may be happy to resemble
The gods but in decay."4
Thus the Chaldean priest, to the brightness of the setting
sun. Hear now the Greek girl, Myrrha, of his rising: —
" The day at last has broken. What a night
Hath usher'd it ! How beautiful in heaven !
Though varied with a transitory storm,
See Note 4 ; § 44, p. 44.1
'See Note 5 ; § 45, p. 45.1
|See Note 6 ; § 46, p. 45.]
Act ii. scene 1. The following quotation is from Act v. scene 1.]
14 THE STORM-CLOUD
More beautiful in that variety : l
How hideous upon earth ! where peace, and hope,
And love, and revel, in an hour were trampled
By human passions to a human chaos,
Not yet resolved to separate elements : —
'T is warring still ! And can the sun so rise,
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into
Vapours more lovely than the unclouded sky,
With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains,
And billows purpler than the ocean's, making
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
So like, — we almost deem it permanent ;
So fleeting, — we can scarcely call it aught
Beyond a vision, 't is so transiently
Scatter'd along the eternal vault : and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch
Of sorrow and of love."
How often now — young maids of London, — do you
make sunrise the " haunted epoch " of either ? 2
7. Thus much, then, of the skies that used to be, and
clouds "more lovely than the unclouded sky," and of the
temper of their observers. I pass to the account of clouds
that are, and — I say it with sorrow — of the ^temper of
their observers.
But the general division which I have instituted between
bad-weather and fair-weather clouds must be more carefully
carried out in the sub-species, before we can reason of it
farther: and before we begin talk either of the sub-genera
and sub-species, or super-genera and super-species of cloud,
perhaps we had better define what every cloud is, and must
be, to begin with.
Every cloud that can be, is thus primarily definable :
"Visible vapour of water floating at a certain height in
the air." The second clause of this definition, you see, at
once implies that there is such a thing as visible vapour of
water which does not float at a certain height in the air.
You are all familiar with one extremely cognizable variety of
1 [See Note 7 ; § 47, p. 46.]
1 [Compare the "Notes on a Word in Shakespeare," below, p. 535.]
LECTURE I 15
that sort of vapour — London Particular;1 but that especial
blessing of metropolitan society is only a strongly-developed
and highly-seasoned condition of a form of watery vapour
which exists just as generally and widely at the bottom of
the air, as the clouds do — on what, for convenience' sake,
we may call the top of it ; — only as yet, thanks to the
sagacity of scientific men, we have got no general name
for the bottom cloud, though the whole question of cloud
nature begins in this broad fact, that you have one kind of
vapour that lies to a certain depth on the ground, and
another that floats at a certain height in the sky.2 Perfectly
definite, in both cases, the surface level of the earthly
vapour, and the roof level of the heavenly vapour, are each
of them drawn within the depth of a fathom. Under their
line, drawn for the day and for the hour, the clouds will
not stoop, and above theirs, the mists will not rise. Each
in their own region, high or deep, may expatiate at their
pleasure; within that, they climb, or decline, — within that
they congeal or melt away ; but below their assigned horizon
the surges of the cloud sea may not sink, and the floods of
the mist lagoon may not be swollen.
8. That is the first idea you have to get well into your
minds concerning the abodes of this visible vapour; next,
you have to consider the manner of its visibility. Is it,
you have to ask, with cloud vapour, as with most other
things, that they are seen when they are there, and not
seen when they are not there? or has cloud vapour so much
of the ghost in it, that it can be visible or invisible as it
likes, and may perhaps be all unpleasantly and malignantly
there, just as much when we don't see it, as when we
do ? To which I answer, comfortably and generally, that,
on the whole, a cloud is where you see it, and isn't
where you don't ; 3 that, when there's an evident and honest
[Dickens's phrase for London fog: coined in Bleak House (1852), ch. in.]
2 [On the general subject of the scientific questions which Ruskiu asks in these
lectures about the clouds, see the Postscript to ch. i. part vii. of Modern Painters
(Vol. VII. p. 141), and compare the correspondence of 1885 with Sir Oliver Lodge
(Vol. XXXVII.).]
3 [For a reference by Ruskin to this passage, see § 60 (below, p. 55).]
16 THE STORM-CLOUD
thunder- cloud in the north-east, you needn't suppose there's
a surreptitious and slinking one in the north-west ; — when
there's a visible fog at Bermondsey, it doesn't follow there's
a spiritual one, more than usual, at the West End : and
when you get up to the clouds, and can walk into them
or out of them, as you like, you find when you're in them
they wet your whiskers, or take out your curls, and when
you're out of them, they don't; and therefore you may
with probability assume — not with certainty, observe, but
with probability — that there's more water in the air where
it damps your curls than where it doesn't. If it gets much
denser than that, it will begin to rain; and then you may
assert, certainly with safety, that there is a shower in one
place, and not in another; and not allow the scientific
people to tell you that the rain is everywhere, but palpable
in Tooley Street, and impalpable in Grosvenor Square.
9. That, I say, is broadly and comfortably so on the
whole, — and yet with this kind of qualification and farther
condition in the matter. If you watch the steam coming
strongly out of an engine-funnel,1 — at the top of the funnel
it is transparent, — you can't see it, though it is more densely
and intensely there than anywhere else. Six inches out of
the funnel it becomes snow-white, — you see it, and you see
it, observe, exactly where it is, — it is then a real and proper
cloud. Twenty yards off the funnel it scatters and melts
away; a little of it sprinkles you with rain if you are
underneath it, but the rest disappears ; yet it is still there ;
— the surrounding air does not absorb it all into space in
a moment ; there is a gradually diffusing current of invisible
moisture at the end of the visible stream — an invisible, yet
quite substantial, vapour ; but not, according to our defini-
tion, a cloud, for a cloud is vapour visible.
10. Then the next bit of the question, of course, is,
What makes the vapour visible, when it is so? Why is
the compressed steam transparent, the loose steam white,
the dissolved steam transparent again ?
1 [See Note 8 ; § 48, p. 46.]
LECTURE I 17
The scientific people tell you that the vapour becomes
visible, and chilled, as it expands. Many thanks to them ;
but can they show us any reason why particles of water
should be more opaque when they are separated than when
they are close together, or give us any idea of the difference
of the state of a particle of water, which won't sink in the
air, from that of one that won't rise in it?1
11. And here I must parenthetically give you a little
word of, I will venture to say, extremely useful, advice
about scientific people in general. Their first business is,
of course, to tell you things that are so, and do happen, —
as that, if you warm water, it will boil ; if you cool it, it
will freeze ; and if you put a candle to a cask of gun-
powder, it will blow you up. Their second, and far more
important business, is to tell you what you had best do
under the circumstances, — put the kettle on in time for
tea ; powder your ice and salt, if you have a mind for ices ;
and obviate the chance of explosion by not making the
gunpowder. But if, beyond this safe and beneficial business,
they ever try to explain anything to you, you may be
confident of one of two things, — either that they know
nothing (to speak of) about it, or that they have only
seen one side of it — and not only haven't seen, but usually
have no mind to see, the other. When, for instance,
Professor Tyndall explains the twisted beds of the Jung-
frau to you by intimating that the Matterhorn is growing
flat ; 2 or the clouds on the lee side of the Matterhorn by
the wind's rubbing against the windward side of it,3 — you
may be pretty sure the scientific people don't know much
(to speak of) yet, either about rock-beds, or cloud-beds.
And even if the explanation, so to call it, be sound on one
side, windward or lee, you may, as I said, be nearly certain
it won't do on the other. Take the very top and centre
of scientific interpretation by the greatest of its masters :
1 [See Note 9 ; § 50, p.
* [See '
* [See
XXXIV.
iiuie »7 , >j u\jy p. no.j
Note 10; § 51, p. 48.1
Note 11 ; § 52, p. 49.]
18 THE STORM-CLOUD
Newton explained to you — or at least was once supposed to
have explained — why an apple fell ; but he never thought
of explaining the exactly correlative, but infinitely more
difficult question, how the apple got up there !
You will not, therefore, so please you, expect me to
explain anything to you, — I have come solely and simply
to put before you a few facts, which you can't see by
candlelight, or in railroad tunnels, but which are making
themselves now so very distinctly felt as well as seen, that
you may perhaps have to roof, if not wall, hah0 London
afresh before we are many years older.
12. I go back to my point — the way in which clouds,
as a matter of fact, become visible. I have defined the
floating or sky cloud, and defined the falling or earth cloud.
But there's a sort of thing between the two, which needs
a third definition : namely, Mist. In the 22nd page of his
Glaciers of the Alps? Professor Tyndall says that " the
marvellous blueness of the sky in the earlier part of the
day indicated that the air was charged, almost to saturation,
with transparent aqueous vapour." Well, in certain weather
that is true. You all know the peculiar clearness which
precedes rain, — when the distant hills are looking nigh. I
take it on trust from the scientific people that there is
then a quantity — almost to saturation — of aqueous vapour
in the air, but it is aqueous vapour in a state which makes
the air more transparent than it would be without it.
What state of aqueous molecule is that, absolutely unre-
flective2 of light — perfectly transmissive of light, and show-
ing at once the colour of blue water and blue air on the
distant hills?
13. I put the question — and pass round to the other
side. Such a clearness, though a certain forerunner of rain,
is not always its forerunner. Far the contrary. Thick air
is a much more frequent forerunner of rain than clear
air. In cool weather, you will often get the transparent
1 [The references are to the first edition (1860) of The Glaciers of the Alps.]
2 [See Note 12 ; § 54, p. 51. Also Note 14, § 57, p. 63.]
LECTURE I 19
prophecy: but in hot weather, or in certain not hitherto
defined states of atmosphere, the forerunner of rain is mist.
In a general way, after you have had two or three days
of rain, the air and sky are healthily clear, and the sun
bright. If it is hot also, the next day is a little mistier —
the next misty and sultry, — and the next and the next,
getting thicker and thicker, end in another storm, or period
of rain.
14. I suppose the thick air, as well as the transparent,
is in both cases saturated with aqueous vapour ; — but also
in both, observe, vapour that floats everywhere, as if you
mixed mud with the sea ; and it takes no shape anywhere :
you may have it with calm, or with wind, it makes no
difference to it. You have a nasty haze with a bitter east
wind, or a nasty haze with not a leaf stirring, and you
may have the clear blue vapour with a fresh rainy breeze,
or the clear blue vapour as still as the sky above. What
difference is there between these aqueous molecules that are
clear, and those that are muddy, these that must sink or
rise, and those that must stay where they are, these that
have form and stature, that are bellied like whales and
backed like weasels,1 and those that have neither backs
nor fronts, nor feet nor faces, but are a mist — and no
more — over two or three thousand square miles ?
I again leave the questions with you, and pass on.
15. Hitherto I have spoken of all aqueous vapour as if
it were either transparent or white — visible by becoming
opaque like snow, but not by any accession of colour.
But even those of us who are least observant of skies,
know that, irrespective of all supervening colours from the
sun, there are white clouds, brown clouds, grey clouds,
and black clouds. Are these indeed — what they appear to
be — entirely distinct monastic disciplines of cloud : Black
Friars, and White Friars, and Friars of Orders Grey ? Or
is it only their various nearness to us, their denseness, and
1 [Compare Art of England, § 185 : Vol. XXXIII. p. 389.]
20 THE STORM-CLOUD
the failing of the light upon them, that makes some clouds
look black1 and others snowy?
I can only give you qualified and cautious answer.
There are, by differences in their own character, Domini-
can clouds, and there are Franciscan; — there are the Black
Hussars of the Bandiera della Morte,2 and there are the
Scots Greys whose horses can run upon the rock.3 But
if you ask me, as I would have you ask me, why argent
and why sable, how baptized in white like a bride or a
novice and how hooded with blackness like a Judge of the
Vehmgericht Tribunal,4 — I leave these questions with you,
and pass on.
16. Admitting degrees of darkness, we have next to
ask what colour from sunshine can the white cloud receive,
and what the black ?
You won't expect me to tell you all that, or even the
little that is accurately known about that, in a quarter of
an hour; yet note these main facts on the matter.
On any pure white, and practically opaque, cloud, or
thing like a cloud, as an Alp, or Milan Cathedral, you can
have cast5 by rising or setting sunlight, any tints of amber,
orange, or moderately deep rose — you can't have lemon
yellows, or any kind of green except in negative hue by
opposition ; and though by storm-light you may sometimes
get the reds cast very deep, beyond a certain limit you
cannot go, — the Alps are never vermilion colour, nor flamingo
colour, nor canary colour ; nor did you ever see a full
scarlet cumulus of thunder-cloud.
On opaque white vapour, then, remember, you can get
a glow or a blush of colour, never a flame of it.
17. But when the cloud is transparent as well as pure,
1 [See Note 13 ; § 55, p. 52.]
2 [For the reference here, see Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 89 (below, p. 359).]
3 [" Shall horses run upon the rock?" (Amos vi. 12). To the "terrible Scots
Greys," Ruskin often refers: see Vol. XXXIII. p. 475, and the other passages
there noted.]
* [The MS. has, in place of "like a Judge," etc., "like a sister of mercy as
they dress nowadays, or a carrion crow as they dress on all days." For "the
Vehmgericht," see Anne of Geierstein, ch. «.]
* [The word "cast" is to be distinguished from "reflected": see Note 14,
§ 56, p. 53.]
LECTURE I 21
and can be filled with light through all the body of it,
you then can have by the light reflected1 from its atoms
any force conceivable by human mind of the entire group
of the golden and ruby colours, from intensely burnished
gold colour, through a scarlet for whose brightness there
are no words, into any depth and any hue of Tyrian crim-
son and Byzantine purple. These with full blue breathed
between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the
horizon, form the scales and chords of colour possible to
the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather;
the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green
blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme
of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their edges
pass into each other.
18. No colours that can be fixed in earth can ever
represent to you the lustre of these cloudy ones. But the
actual tints may be shown you in a lower key, and to a
certain extent their power and relation to each other.
I have painted the diagram here shown you2 with
colours prepared for me lately by Messrs. Newman, which
I find brilliant to the height that pigments can be;3 and
the ready kindness of Mr. Wilson Barrett4 enables me to
show you their effect by a white light as pure as that of
the day. The diagram is enlarged from my careful sketch
of the sunset of 1st October, 1868, at Abbeville, which
was a beautiful example of what, in fine weather about to
pass into storm, a sunset could then be, in the districts of
Kent and Picardy unaffected by smoke.5 In reality, the
ruby and vermilion clouds were, by myriads, more numerous
than I have had time to paint : but the general character of
their grouping is well enough expressed. All the illumined
1 [See Note 14 ; § 56, p. 53.]
' [Fig. 1 on Plate 1.1
3 [Compare Raskin's letter to Mr. Collingwood given in the Introduction, above,
p. xxvii.]
4 [For a letter from Ruskin to Mr. Wilson Barrett, then the actor-manager of
the Princess' Theatre, on his production of Claudian, see a later volume of this
edition.]
8 [See the further description of this sky below, § 60, p. 56. In his diary at
Abbeville (October 1, 1868) Ruskin notes : " The most lovely sunset I ever saw in
heaven, beating the Boulogne one of 1861, not in richness, but in exquisiteuess."]
22 THE STORM-CLOUD
clouds are high in the air, and nearly motionless ; beneath
them, electric storm-cloud rises in a threatening cumulus
on the right, and drifts in dark flakes across the horizon,
casting from its broken masses radiating shadows on the
upper clouds. These shadows are traced, in the first place
by making the misty blue of the open sky more trans-
parent, and therefore darker ; and secondly, by entirely
intercepting the sunbeams on the bars of cloud, which,
within the shadowed spaces, show dark on the blue instead
of light.
But, mind, all that is done by reflected light — and in
that light you never get a green ray from the reflecting
cloud ; there is no such thing in nature as a green lighted
cloud relieved from a red sky, — the cloud is always red,
and the sky green, and green, observe, by transmitted, not
reflected light.1
19. But now note, there is another kind of cloud, pure
white, and exquisitely delicate ; which acts not by reflecting,
nor by refracting, but, as it is now called,2 diffracting, the
sun's rays. The particles of this cloud are said — with what
truth I know not3 — to send the sunbeams round them
instead of through them ; somehow or other, at any rate,
they resolve them into their prismatic element ; and then
you have literally a kaleidoscope in the sky, with every
colour of the prism in absolute purity ; but above all in
force, now, the ruby red and the green, — with purple, and
violet-blue, in a virtual equality, more definite than that of
the rainbow.4 The red in the rainbow is mostly brick red,
the violet, though beautiful, often lost at the edge; but in
the prismatic cloud the violet, the green, and the ruby are
all more lovely than in any precious stones, and they are
varied as in a bird's breast, changing their places, depths,
and extent at every instant ; — the main cause of this change
1 [See, again, Note 14; § 57, p. 53.]
2 [The proof has, " as Professor Tyndall calls it " : see Glaciers of the Alps, 1860,
p. 237.]
3 [See Note 15 ; § 58, p. 54]
4 [For a reference to this passage, see Vol. VII. p. 148 n.]
Fig. I
A Sunset at Abbeville, 1868
1
An August Sky at Brantwood, 1880
LECTURE I 23
being, that the prismatic cloud itself is always in rapid,
and generally in fluctuating motion.
"A light veil of clouds had drawn itself/' says Professor Tyndall, in
describing his solitary ascent of Monte Rosa,1 " between me and the sun,
and this was flooded with the most brilliant dyes. Orange, red, green,
blue — all the hues produced by diffraction — were exhibited in the utmost
splendour.
" Three times during my ascent (the short ascent of the last peak)
similar veils drew themselves across the sun, and at each passage the
splendid phenomena were renewed. There seemed a tendency to form
circular zones of colour round the sun ; but the clouds were not sufficiently
uniform to permit of this, and they were consequently broken into spaces,
each steeped with the colour due to the condition of the cloud at the
place."
Three times, you observe, the veil passed, and three
times another came, or the first faded and another formed ;
and so it is always, as far as I have registered prismatic
cloud : and the most beautiful colours I ever saw were on
those that flew fastest.
20. This second diagram2 is enlarged admirably by Mr.
Arthur Severn from my sketch of the sky in the after-
noon of the 6th of August, 1880, at Brantwood, two hours
before sunset.3 You are looking west by north, straight
towards the sun, and nearly straight towards the wind.
1 [Glaciers of the Alps, p. 154]
2 [Fig. 2 on Plate I.]
3 [For further remarks on it, see below, § 60, p. 56. In his diary (Brantwood,
August 6) Ruskin made the following entry : —
" In the afternoon the most overwhelming1, wonderful hours of increas-
ing prismatic light, like a painted window in heaven, pale but intent ;
and in one or two cases, even deep rose colour, passing into orange,
barred or interstained with pale emerald green, passing here and there
into olive but not violet except in some dark grey clouds which became
violet by being touched with the ruby : these very rare and small, like
Turner's lightest spray of dark touches in Flint Castle. All this on the
edges above the sun, at about 12-15° above him ; he, some 20° above
horizon ; and all sky interwoven with muslin and netting of diviuest cirri
cloud, over infinite shoals and sands of mackerel cloud ; but all flying,
failing, melting — re-appearing — twisting and intertwisting — faster than eye
could follow ; and, after some three hours of this play (5 to 8), ending
in two great ranks of storm-cloud — lower, pale against higher, dark (or
backing of dark) : the latter with long locks and tresses, as of hair at its
edge ; and both overlying the range of hills, exactly like the Hesperides
dragon — ending northward in a clear sky against a black monster cloud —
half dolphin, half tiger (which ?) rolled and rose, and finally toppled
and tumbled — the face of it, or where, had it been a beast, the face would
24 THE STORM-CLOUD
From the west the wind blows fiercely towards you out of
the blue sky. Under the blue space is a flattened dome
of earth-cloud clinging to, and altogether masquing the
form of, the mountain, known as the Old Man of Coniston.
The top of that dome of cloud is two thousand eight
hundred feet above the sea, the mountain two thousand six
hundred, the cloud lying two hundred feet deep on it.
Behind it, westward and seaward, all's clear; but when the
wind out of that blue clearness comes over the ridge of
the earth-cloud, at that moment and that line, its own
moisture congeals into these white — I believe, ice- clouds ;
threads, and meshes, and tresses, and tapestries, flying, fail-
ing, melting, reappearing; spinning and unspinning them-
selves, coiling and uncoiling, winding and unwinding, faster
than eye or thought can follow: and through all their
dazzling maze of frosty filaments shines a painted window
in palpitation ; its pulses of colour interwoven in motion,
intermittent in fire, — emerald and ruby and pale purple and
violet melting into a blue that is not of the sky, but of
the sunbeam ; — purer than the crystal, softer than the rain-
bow, and brighter than the snow.
But you must please here observe that while my first
diagram did with some adequateness represent to you the
colour facts there spoken of, the present diagram can only
explain, not reproduce them. The bright reflected colours
of clouds can be represented in painting, because they are
relieved against darker colours, or, in many cases, are dark
colours, the vermilion and ruby clouds being often much
darker than the green or blue sky beyond them. But in
the case of the phenomena now under your attention, the
colours are all brighter than pure white, — the entire body
have been, falling forward like a gloomy and slow avalanche and melting,
as it was torn down or dragged, into nothingness.
11 1 believe these swift and mocking clouds and colours are only between
storms. They are assuredly new in Heaven, so far as my life reaches.
I never saw a single example of them till after 1870."
For a coloured reproduction of Turner's " Flint Castle," see Plate XI. in Vol. XXII.
(p. 62). For the dragon in his " Garden of the Hesperides," see Plate 78 in
Modern Painters, vol. v. (Vol. VII. p. 402).]
LECTURE I 25
of the cloud in which they show themselves being white
by transmitted light, so that I can only show you what
the colours are, and where they are, — but leaving them
dark on the white ground. Only artificial, and very high
illumination would give the real effect of them, — painting
cannot.
21. Enough, however, is here done to fix in your minds
the distinction between those two species of cloud, — one,
either stationary, or slow in motion, reflecting unresolved
light ; * the other, fast-flying, and transmitting resolved light.
What difference is there in the nature of the atoms, be-
tween those two kinds of clouds ? I leave the question
with you for to-day, merely hinting to you my suspicion
that the prismatic cloud is of finely-comminuted water, or
ice,2 instead of aqueous vapour ; but the only clue I have
to this idea is in the purity of the rainbow formed in frost
mist, lying close to water surfaces. Such mist, however,
only becomes prismatic as common rain does, when the
sun is behind the spectator, while prismatic clouds are, on
the contrary, always between the spectator and the sun.
22. The main reason, however, why I can tell you
nothing yet about these colours of diffraction or interfer-
ence, is that, whenever I try to find anything firm for you
to depend on, I am stopped by the quite frightful inac-
curacy of the scientific people's terms, which is the conse-
quence of their always trying to write mixed Latin and
English,3 so losing the grace of the one and the sense of
the other. And, in this point of the diffraction of light I
am stopped dead by their confusion of idea also, in using
the words undulation and vibration as synonyms. " When,"
says Professor Tyndall,4 "you are told that the atoms of
the sun vibrate at different rates, and produce waves of
different sizes, — your experience of water-waves will enable
you to form a tolerably clear notion of what is meant."
See Note 16 ; § 60, p. 55.]
|See Note 17 ; 8 61, p. 56.]
Compare Deucalion, ii. ch. i. § 36 n. (Vol. XXVI. p. 317).]
'Forms of Water, § 29 (p. 11).]
26 THE STORM-CLOUD
" Tolerably clear " ! — your toleration must be consider-
able, then. Do you suppose a water-wave is like a harp-
string ? Vibration is the movement of a body in a state of
tension, — undulation, that of a body absolutely lax. In
vibration, not an atom of the body changes its place in
relation to another, — in undulation, not an atom of the
body remains in the same place with regard to another.
In vibration, every particle of the body ignores gravitation,
or defies it, — in undulation, every particle of the body is
slavishly submitted to it. In undulation, not one wave
is like another; in vibration, every pulse is alike. And of
undulation itself, there are all manner of visible conditions,
which are not true conditions. A flag ripples in the wind,
but it does not undulate as the sea does, — for in the sea,
the water is taken from the trough to put on to the ridge,
but in the flag, though the motion is progressive, the bits
of bunting keep their place. You see a field of corn undu-
lating as if it was water, — it is different from the flag, for
the ears of corn bow out of their places and return to
them, — and yet, it is no more like the undulation of the
sea, than the shaking of an aspen leaf in a storm, or the
lowering of the lances in a battle.
And the best of the jest is, that after mixing up these
two notions in their heads inextricably, the scientific people
apply both when neither will fit ; and when all undulation
known to us presumes weight, and all vibration, impact, —
the undulating theory of light is proposed to you concern-
ing a medium which you can neither weigh nor touch !
All communicable vibration — of course I mean — and in
dead matter: You may fall a-shivering on your own ac-
count, if you like, but you can't get a billiard-ball to fall
a-shivering on its own account.1
23. Yet observe that in thus signalizing the inaccuracy
of the terms in which they are taught, I neither accept,
nor assail, the conclusions respecting the oscillatory states
of light, heat, and sound, which have resulted from the
1 [See Note 18 ; § 65, p. 59.]
LECTURE I 27
postulate of an elastic, though impalpable and imponder-
able ether, possessing the elasticity of air. This only I
desire you to mark with attention, — that both light and
sound are sensations of the animal frame, which remain, and
must remain, wholly inexplicable, whatever manner of force,
pulse, or palpitation may be instrumental in producing
them : nor does any such force become light or sound,
except in its rencontre with an animal. The leaf hears
no murmur in the wind to which it wavers on the branches,
nor can the clay discern the vibration by which it is
thrilled into a ruby. The Eye and the Ear are the
creators alike of the ray and the tone ; and the conclusion
follows logically from the right conception of their living
power, — " He that planted the Ear, shall He not hear ?
He that formed the Eye, shall not He see ? " l
24. For security, therefore, and simplicity of definition
of light, you will find no possibility of advancing beyond
Plato's "the power that through the eye manifests colour,"2
but on that definition, you will find, alike by Plato and
all great subsequent thinkers, a moral Science of Light
founded, far and away more important to you than all the
physical laws ever learned by vitreous revelation. Concern-
ing which 1 will refer you to the sixth lecture which I
gave at Oxford in 1872, on the relation of Art to the
Science of Light (Eagle's Nest, § 97 3), reading now only
the sentence introducing its subject : —
" The ' Fiat lux ' of creation is therefore, in the deep sense, ' fiat aniraa/
and is as much, when you understand it, the ordering of Intelligence as the
ordering of Vision. It is the appointment of change of what had been
else only a mechanical effluence from things unseen to things unseeing, —
from Stars, that did not shine, to Earth, that did not perceive, — the
change, I say, of that blind vibration into the glory of the Sun and Moon
for human eyes : so making possible the communication out of the un-
fathomable truth of that portion of truth which is good for us, and
animating to us, and is set to rule over the day and over the night of
our joy and our sorrow."
1 [Psalms xciv. 9.]
J [Minos, 314 A : see Vol. XX. p. 223, and compare Vol. XXII. p. 194.1
» [Vol. XXII. p. 194.]
*/r
28 THE STORM-CLOUD
25. Returning now to our subject at the point from
which I permitted myself, I trust not without your pardon,
to diverge ; you may incidentally, but carefully, observe,
that the effect of such a sky as that represented in the
second diagram, so far as it can be abstracted or conveyed
by painting at all, implies the total absence of any pervad-
ing warmth of tint, such as artists usually call "tone."
Every tint must be the purest possible, and above all the
white. Partly, lest you should think, from my treatment
of these two phases of effect, that I am insensible to the
Fig. 3
TWILIGHT BETWEEN VERONA AND BRESCIA, 1845
quality of tone, — and partly to complete the representation
of states of weather undefiled by plague-cloud, yet capable
of the most solemn dignity in saddening colour, I show
you, Diagram 3, the record of an autumn twilight of the
year 1845, — sketched while I was changing horses between
Verona and Brescia. The distant sky in this drawing is
in the glowing calm which is always taken by the great
Italian painters for the background of their sacred pictures ;
a broad field of cloud is advancing upon it overhead, and
meeting others enlarging in the distance; these are rain-
clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and
bring on rain before midnight : but there is no power in
them to pollute the sky beyond and above them : they do
LECTURE I 29
not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle
with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the
edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as
deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself
into a darkness full of stars.
26. These three instances are all I have time to give of
the former conditions of serene weather, and of non-electric
rain-cloud. But I must yet, to complete the sequence of
my subject, show you one example of a good, old-fashioned,
healthy, and mighty, storm.
In Diagram 4,1 Mr. Severn has beautifully enlarged my
sketch of a July thunder-cloud of the year 1858, on the
Alps of the Val d'Aosta, seen from Turin, that is to say,
some twenty-five or thirty miles distant. You see that no
mistake is possible here about what is good weather and
what bad, or which is cloud and which is sky; but I show
you this sketch especially to give you the scale of heights
for such clouds in the atmosphere. These thunder cumuli
entirely hide the higher Alps.2 It does not, however, follow
that they have buried them, for most of their own aspect
of height is owing to the approach of their nearer masses;
but at all events, you have cumulus there rising from its
base, at about three thousand feet above the plain, to a
good ten thousand in the air.
White cirri, in reality parallel, but by perspective radiat-
ing, catch the sunshine above, at a height of from fifteen
to twenty thousand feet ; but the storm on the mountains
gathers itself into ;a full mile's depth of massy cloud,—
every fold of it involved with thunder, but every form
of it, every action, every colour, magnificent : — doing its
mighty work in its own hour and its own dominion, nor
snatching from you for an instant, nor defiling with a
stain, the abiding blue of the transcendent sky, or the
fretted silver of its passionless clouds.
27. We so rarely now see cumulus cloud of this grand
1 [Fig. 4 on Plate II. (p. 40).]
1 [In the MS., "Monte Combin and Velan."]
30 THE STORM-CLOUD
kind, that I will yet delay you by reading the description
of its nearer aspect, in the 130th page of Eagle's Nest : x —
"The rain which flooded our fields the Sunday before last, was followed,
as you will remember, by bright days, of which Tuesday the 20th (February,
1872) was, in London, notable for the splendour, towards the afternoon,
of its white cumulus clouds. There has been so much black east wind
lately, and so much fog and artificial gloom, besides, that I find it is
actually some two years since I last saw a noble cumulus cloud under full
light. I chanced to be standing under the Victoria Tower at West-
minster, when the largest mass of them floated past, that day, from the
north-west; and I was more impressed than ever yet by the awfulness of
the cloud-form, and its unaccountableness, in the present state of our know-
ledge. The Victoria Tower, seen against it, had no magnitude : it was
like looking at Mont Blanc over a lamp-post. The domes of cloud-snow
were heaped as definitely : their broken flanks were as grey and firm
as rocks, and the whole mountain, of a compass and height in heaven
which only became more and more inconceivable as the eye strove to
ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady march, whose
swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest : yet, along all the
ravines of vapour, precipice kept pace with precipice, and not one thrust
another.
" What is it that hews them out ? Why is the blue sky pure there, —
the cloud solid here ; and edged like marble : and why does the state of
the blue sky pass into the state of cloud, in that calm advance ?
" It is true that you can more or less imitate the forms of cloud with
explosive vapour or steam ; but the steam melts instantly, and the ex-
plosive vapour dissipates itself. The cloud, of perfect form, proceeds un-
changed. It is not an explosion, but an enduring and advancing presence.
The more you think of it, the less explicable it will become to you."
28. Thus far then of clouds that were once familiar ;
now at last, entering on my immediate subject, I shall best
introduce it to you by reading an entry in my diary which
gives progressive description of the most gentle aspect of
the modern plague-cloud.
"BoLTON ABBEY, 4th July, 1875.
" Half-past eight, morning ; the first bright morning for
the last fortnight.
"At half-past five it was entirely clear, and entirely
calm; the moorlands glowing, and the Wharfe glittering
1 [The reference is to the first edition; §§ 130, 131 (Vol. XXJI. pp. 212-
213).]
LECTURE I 31
in sacred light, and even the thin-stemmed field-flowers
quiet as stars, in the peace in which —
" ' All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,
Than they were painted on a wall,
No more do move, nor steir.' 1
But, an hour ago, the leaves at my window first shook
slightly. They are now trembling continuously, as those of
all the trees, under a gradually rising wind, of which the
tremulous action scarcely permits the direction to be defined,
— but which falls and returns in fits of varying force, like
those which precede a thunderstorm — never wholly ceasing :
the direction of its upper current is shown by a few ragged
white clouds, moving fast from the north, which rose, at
the time of the first leaf-shaking, behind the edge of the
moors in the east.
"This wind is the plague- wind of the eighth decade
of years in the nineteenth century ; a period which will
assuredly be recognized in future meteorological history
as one of phenomena hitherto unrecorded in the courses
of nature, and characterized pre-eminently by the almost
ceaseless action of this calamitous wind. While I have
been writing these sentences, the white clouds above speci-
fied have increased to twice the size they had when I
began to write ; and in about two hours from this time —
say by eleven o'clock, if the wind continue, — the whole
sky will be dark with them, as it was yesterday, and has
been through prolonged periods during the last five years.
I first noticed the definite character of this wind, and of
the clouds it brings with it, in the year 1871, describing
1 [Hymnes, or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of Poesie may be espied. By
Alexander Hume, Edinburgh, 1699. The author (1560-1609) was minister of
Logie ; the verse (which is from his best poem, A Description of the Day Estivall,
p. 15) is in the original : —
"All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmie leife do beir,
Nor thay were painted on a wall,
Nae mair they move or steir."]
82 THE STORM-CLOUD
it then in the July number1 of Fors Clavigera; but little,
at that time, apprehending either its universality, or any
probability of its annual continuance. I am able now to
state positively that its range of power extends from the
North of England to Sicily; and that it blows more or
less during the whole of the year, except the early autumn.
This autumnal abdication is, I hope, beginning: it blew
but feebly yesterday, though without intermission, from
the north, making every shady place cold, while the sun was
burning ; its effect on the sky being only to dim the blue
of it between masses of ragged cumulus. To-day it has
entirely fallen ; and there seems hope of bright weather,
the first for me since the end of May, when I had two fine
days at Aylesbury; the third, May 28th, being black again
from morning to evening. There seems to be some reference
to the blackness caused by the prevalence of this wind in
the old French name of Bise, ' grey wind ' ; and, indeed,
one of the darkest and bitterest days of it I ever saw was
at Vevay in 1872."2
29. The first time I recognized the clouds brought by
the plague-wind as distinct in character was in walking
back from Oxford, after a hard day's work, to Abingdon,3
in the early spring of 1871 : it would take too long to give
you any account this evening of the particulars which drew
my attention to them ; but during the following months I
had too frequent opportunities of verifying my first thoughts
of them, and on the first of July in that year wrote the
description of them which begins the Fors Clavigera of
August, thus: —
" It is the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismallest light
that ever yet I wrote by ; namely, the light of this midsummer morning,
in mid-England (Matlock, Derbyshire), in the year 1871.
" For the sky is covered with grey cloud ; — not rain-cloud, but a dry
black veil, which no ray of sunshine can pierce ; partly diffused in mist,
1 [That is, the August number, written in July : see below, § 29.]
2 [An error for 1870; his diary of that year notes on May C at Vevay the
"bitter black east wind."!
3 [Where Ruskin was living at the time : see Vol. XX. p. xxxix.]
LECTURE I 33
feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, yet without any
substance, or wreathing, or colour of its own. And everywhere the leaves
of the trees are shaking fitfully, as they do before a thunderstorm ; only
not violently, but enough to show the passing to and fro of a strange,
bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, had it been the first morning of
its kind that summer had sent. But during all this spring, in London,
and at Oxford, through meagre March, through changelessly sullen April,
through despondent May, and darkened June, morning after morning has
come grey-shrouded thus.
" And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I am fifty
years old, and more; and since I was five, have gleaned the best hours of
my life in the sun of spring and summer mornings ; and I never saw such
as these, till now.
"And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun and the
moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about them, I believe, by
this time ; and how they move, and what they are made of.
"And I do not care, for my part, two copper spangles how they move,
nor what they are made of. I can't move them any other way than they
go, nor make them of anything else, better than they are made. But I
would care much and give much, if I could be told where this bitter
wind comes from, and what it is made of.
"For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory science, one might
make it of something else.
" It looks partly as if it were made of poisonous smoke ; very possibly it
may be : there are at least two hundred furnace chimneys in a square of two
miles on every side of me. But mere smoke would not blow to and fro in
that wild way. It looks more to me as if it were made of dead men's souls
— such of them as are not gone yet where they have to go, and may be
flitting hither and thither, doubting, themselves, of the fittest place for them.
"You know, if there are such things as souls, and if ever any of them
haunt places where they have been hurt, there must be many above us,
just now, displeased enough ! " l
The last sentence refers of course to the battles of the
Franco-German campaign, which was especially horrible to
me, in its digging, as the Germans should have known, a
moat flooded with waters of death between the two nations
for a century to come.
30. Since that Midsummer day, my attention, however
otherwise occupied, has never relaxed in its record of the
phenomena characteristic of the plague-wind ; and I now
define for you, as briefly as possible, the essential signs of it.
(1.) It is a wind of darkness, — all the former conditions
of tormenting winds, whether from the north or east, were
more or less capable of co-existing with sunlight, and often
1 [Vol. XXVII. pp. 132, 133.]
34 THE STORM-CLOUD
with steady and bright sunlight ; but whenever, and wher-
ever the plague-wind blows, be it but for ten minutes, the
sky is darkened instantly.
31. (2.) It is a malignant quality of wind, unconnected
with any one quarter of the compass ; it blows indifferently
from all, attaching its own bitterness and malice to the
worst characters of the proper winds of each quarter. It will
blow either with drenching rain, or dry rage, from the south,
— with ruinous blasts from the west, — with bitterest chills
from the north, — and with venomous blight from the east.
Its own favourite quarter, however, is the south-west,
so that it is distinguished in its malignity equally from
the Bise of Provence, which is a north wind always, and
from our own old friend, the east.
32. (3.) It always blows tremulously, making the leaves
of the trees shudder as if they were all aspens, but with
a peculiar fitfumess which gives them — and I watch them
this moment as I write — an expression of anger as well as
of fear and distress. You may see the kind of quivering,
and hear the ominous whimpering, in the gusts that precede
a great thunderstorm ; but plague-wind is more panic-struck,
and feverish ; and its sound is a hiss instead of a wail.
When I was last at Avallon,1 in South France, I went
to see Faust played at the little country theatre : it was
done with scarcely any means of pictorial effect, except a
few old curtains, and a blue light or two. But the night
on the Brocken was nevertheless extremely appalling to
me, — a strange ghastliness being obtained in some of the
witch scenes merely by fine management of gesture and
drapery ; and in the phantom scenes, by the half-palsied,
half-furious, faltering or fluttering past of phantoms stum-
bling as into graves ; as if of not only soulless, but senseless,
Dead, moving with the very action, the rage, the decrepi-
tude, and the trembling of the plague-wind.
33. (4.) Not only tremulous at every moment, it is also
intermittent with a rapidity quite unexampled in former
1 [In August 1882 : see the Introduction to Vol. XXXIII. p. xxxv.]
LECTURE I 35
weather. There are, indeed, days — and weeks, on which
it blows without cessation, and is as inevitable as the Gulf
Stream ; but also there are days when it is contending with
healthy weather, and on such days it will remit for half
an hour, and the sun will begin to show itself, and then
the wind will come back and cover the whole sky with
clouds in ten minutes; and so on, every half-hour, through
the whole day ; so that it is often impossible to go on with
any kind of drawing in colour, the light being never for
two seconds the same from morning till evening.
34. (5.) It degrades, while it intensifies, ordinary storm;
but before I read you any description of its efforts in this
kind, I must correct an impression which has got abroad
through the papers,1 that I speak as if the plague-wind
blew now always, and there were no more any natural
weather. On the contrary, the winter of 1878-9 was one
of the most healthy and lovely I ever saw ice in ; — Coniston
lake shone under the calm clear frost in one marble field,
as strong as the floor of Milan Cathedral, half a mile across
and four miles down; and the first entries in my diary
which I read you shall be from the 22nd to 26th June,
1876, of perfectly lovely and natural weather: —
"Sunday, 25tk June, 1876.
" Yesterday, an entirely glorious sunset, unmatched in
beauty since that at Abbeville,2 — deep scarlet, and purest
rose, on purple grey, in bars; and stationary, plumy, sweep-
ing filaments above in upper sky, like 'using up the brush?
said Joanie ; remaining in glory, every moment best, chang-
ing from one good into another, (but only in colour or
light— -form steady,) for half an hour full, and the clouds
afterwards fading into the grey against amber twilight,
stationary in the same form for about two hours, at least.
1 [This passage, it will be noted, was added in revising the spoken lecture for
the press.]
1 [See above, p. 21.]
xxxiv. c
36 THE STORM-CLOUD
The darkening rose tint remained till half-past ten, the
grand time being at nine.
" The day had been fine, — exquisite green light on after-
noon hills."
"Monday, 26th June, 1876.
"Yesterday an entirely perfect summer light on the Old
Man ; Lancaster Bay all clear ; Ingleborough and the great
Pennine fault as on a map. Divine beauty of western
colour on thyme and rose, — then twilight of clearest warm
amber far into night, of pale amber all night long; hills
dark-clear against it.
" And so it continued, only growing more intense in blue
and sunlight, all day. After breakfast, I came in from the
well under strawberry bed, to say I had never seen any-
thing like it, so pure or intense, in Italy ; and so it went
glowing on, cloudless, with soft north wind, all day. "
" 16th July.
" The sunset almost too bright through the blinds for
me to read Humboldt at tea by, — finally, new moon like
a lime-light, reflected on breeze-struck water; traces, across
dark calm, of reflected hills."
35. These extracts are, I hope, enough to guard you
against the absurdity of supposing that it all only means
that I am myself soured, or doting, in my old age, and
always in an ill humour. Depend upon it, when old men
are worth anything, they are better-humoured than young
ones ; and have learned to see what good there is, and
pleasantness, in the world they are likely so soon to have
orders to quit.
Now then — take the following sequences of accurate
description of thunderstorm, with plague-wind.
"22nd June, 1876.
" Thunderstorm ; pitch dark, with no blackness, — but
deep, high, Jilthiness of lurid, yet not sublimely lurid,
LECTURE I 37
smoke-cloud ; dense manufacturing mist ; fearful squalls of
shivery wind, making Mr. Severn's sail1 quiver like a man
in a fever fit — all about four, afternoon — but only two
or three claps of thunder, and feeble, though near, flashes.
I never saw such a dirty, weak, foul storm. It cleared
suddenly after raining all afternoon, at half-past eight to
nine, into pure, natural weather, — low rain-clouds on quite
clear, green, wet hills."
" Branttvood, IStk August, 1879.
" The most terrific and horrible thunderstorm, this morn-
ing, I ever remember. It waked me at six, or a little
before — then rolling incessantly, like railway luggage trains,
quite ghastly in its mockery of them — the air one loath-
some mass of sultry and foul fog, like smoke ; scarcely
raining at all, but increasing to heavier rollings, with flashes
quivering vaguely through all the air, and at last terrific
double streams of reddish- violet fire, not forked or zigzag,
but rippled rivulets — two at the same instant some twenty
to thirty degrees apart, and lasting on the eye at least half
a second, with grand artillery- peals following ; not rattling
crashes, or irregular cracklings, but delivered volleys. It
lasted an hour, then passed off, clearing a little, without
rain to speak of, — not a glimpse of blue, — and now, half-
past seven, seems settling down again into Manchester
devil's darkness.
" Quarter to eight, morning. — Thunder returned, all the
air collapsed into one black fog, the hills invisible, and
scarcely visible the opposite shore ; heavy rain in short fits,
and frequent, though less formidable, flashes, and shorter
thunder. While I have written this sentence the cloud has
again dissolved itself, like a nasty solution in a bottle, with
miraculous and unnatural rapidity, and the hills are in
sight again ; a double-forked flash — rippled, I mean, like
the others — starts into its frightful ladder of light between
me and Wetherlam, as I raise my eyes. All black above,
1 [That is, the sail of Mr. Severn's boat on Coniston Lake, seen from Ruskin's
study-window.]
88 THE STORM-CLOUD
a rugged spray cloud on the Eaglet. (The 'Eaglet' is my
own name for the bold and elevated crag to the west of
the little lake above Coniston mines. It had no name
among the country people, and is one of the most con-
spicuous features of the mountain chain, as seen from
Brantwood.)
" Half-past eight. — Three times light and three times
dark since last I wrote, and the darkness seeming each time
as it settles more loathsome, at last stopping my reading
in mere blindness. One lurid gleam of white cumulus in
upper lead-blue sky, seen for half a minute through the sul-
phurous chimney-pot vomit of blackguardly cloud beneath,
where its rags were thinnest."
" Thursday, 22m/ Feb. 1883.
" Yesterday a fearfully dark mist all afternoon, with
steady, south plague-wind of the bitterest, nastiest, poisonous
blight, and fretful flutter. I could scarcely stay in the
wood for the horror of it. To-day, really rather bright
blue, and bright semi-cumuli, with the frantic Old Man
blowing sheaves of lancets and chisels across the lake —
not in strength enough, or whirl enough, to raise it in
spray, but tracing every squall's outline in black on the
silver grey waves, and whistling meanly, and as if on a
flute made of a file."
"Sunday, 11 th August, 1879.
" Raining in foul drizzle, slow and steady ; sky pitch-
dark, and I just get a little light by sitting in the bow-
window ; diabolic clouds over everything : and looking over
my kitchen garden yesterday, I found it one miserable
mass of weeds gone to seed, the roses in the higher garden
putrefied into brown sponges, feeling like dead snails ; and
the half-ripe strawberries all rotten at the stalks."
36. (6.) And now I come to the most important sign
of the plague-wind and the plague-cloud : that in bringing
on their peculiar darkness, they blanch the sun instead of
LECTURE I 39
reddening it. And here I must note briefly to you the
uselessness of observation by instruments, or machines,
instead of eyes. In the first year when I had begun to
notice the specialty of the plague- wind, I went of course
to the Oxford observatory to consult its registrars. They
have their anemometer always on the twirl, and can tell
you the force, or at least the pace, of a gale,1 by day or
night. But the anemometer can only record for you how
often it has been driven round, not at all whether it went
round steadily, or went round trembling. And on that
point depends the entire question whether it is a plague
breeze or a healthy one : and what's the use of telling you
whether the wind's strong or not, when it can't tell you
whether it's a strong medicine, or a strong poison ?
But again — you have your -swrc-measure, and can tell
exactly at any moment how strong, or how weak, or how
wanting, the sun is. But the suri-measurer can't tell you
whether the rays are stopped by a dense shallow cloud, or
a thin deep one. In healthy weather, the sun is hidden
behind a cloud, as it is behind a tree ; and, when the cloud
is past, it comes out again, as bright as before. But in
plague-wind, the sun is choked out of the whole heaven,
all day long, by a cloud which may be a thousand miles
square and five miles deep.
And yet observe : that thin, scraggy, filthy, mangy,
miserable cloud, for all the depth of it, can't turn the sun
red, as a good, business-like fog does with a hundred feet
or so of itself. By the plague-wind every breath of air
you draw is polluted, half round the world; in a London
fog the air itself is pure, though you choose to mix up dirt
with it, and choke yourself with your own nastiness.
37. Now I'm going to show you a diagram of a sunset
in entirely pure weather, above London smoke. I saw it
and sketched it from my old post of observation — the top
garret of my father's house at Herne Hill. There, when
1 [See Note 19 ; § 70, p. 62.]
40 THE STORM-CLOUD
the wind is south, we are outside of the smoke and above
it ; and this diagram,1 admirably enlarged from my own
drawing by my, now in all things best aide-de-camp, Mr.
Collingwood, shows you an old-fashioned sunset — the sort
of thing Turner and I used to have to look at, — (nobody
else ever would) constantly. Every sunset and every dawn,
in fine weather, had something of the sort to show us.
This is one of the last pure sunsets I ever saw, about the
year 1876, — and the point I want you to note in it is, that
the air being pure, the smoke on the horizon, though at
last it hides the sun, yet hides it through gold and ver-
milion. Now, don't go away fancying there's any exaggera-
tion in that study. The prismatic colours, I told you, were
simply impossible to paint ; these, which are transmitted
colours, can indeed be suggested, but no more. The
brightest pigment we have would look dim beside the
truth.
88. I should have liked to have blotted down for you
a bit of plague-cloud to put beside this ; but Heaven knows,
you can see enough of it nowadays without any trouble of
mine ; and if you want, in a hurry, to see what the sun
looks like through it, you've only to throw a bad half-crown
into a basin of soap and water.
Blanched Sun, — blighted grass, — blinded man. — If, in
conclusion, you ask me for any conceivable cause or mean-
ing of these things — I can tell you none, according to your
modern beliefs ; but I can tell you what meaning it would
have borne to the men of old time. Remember, for the
last twenty years, England, and all foreign nations, either
tempting her, or following her, have blasphemed* the name
of God deliberately and openly ; and have done iniquity by
proclamation, every man doing as much injustice to his
brother as it is in his power to do. Of states in such
moral gloom every seer of old predicted the physical gloom,
saying, " The light shall be darkened in the heavens thereof,
1 [Fig. 5 on Plate II.]
2 [See Note 20; § 80, p. 72.]
A July Thunder-cloud in the Val d'Aosta, 1858
An Old-fashioned Sunset, 1876
Fig. 5
LECTURE I 41
and the stars shall withdraw their shining." * All Greek, all
Christian, all Jewish prophecy insists on the same truth
through a thousand myths ; but of all the chief, to former
thought, was the fable of the Jewish warrior and prophet,
for whom the sun hasted not to go down, with which I
leave you to compare at leisure the physical result of your
own wars and prophecies, as declared by your own elect
journal not fourteen days ago, — that the Empire of England,
on which formerly the sun never set, has become one on
which he never rises.2
39. What is best to be done, do you ask me? The
answer is plain. Whether you can affect the signs of the
sky or not, you can the signs of the times.3 Whether you
can bring the sun back or not, you can assuredly bring
back your own cheerfulness, and your own honesty. You
may not be able to say to the winds, " Peace ; be still,"
but you can cease from the insolence of your own lips,
and the troubling of your own passions. And all that
it would be extremely well to do, even though the day
were coming when the sun should be as darkness, and the
moon as blood. But, the paths of rectitude and piety once
regained, who shall say that the promise of old time would
not be found to hold for us also ? — " Bring ye all the tithes
into my storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith the
Lord God, if I will not open you the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room
enough to receive it."
1 [Joel ii. 10 : for the next Bible reference, see Joshua x. 13 ; for other refer-
ences to the sun standing still for Joshua, see below, pp. 117, 327.]
* [The reference is to the Pall Mall Gazette. On January 2 it had published
the report of " registered sunshine " for the week ending December 29 ; namely,
"nil." The sunless weather continued, and on January 23 the Gazette published
"the following simple ditty: —
Old England is afraid of none, He who retails this axiom in
She fears no foomen's threats, His generation wise is ;
For on her mighty empire The sun it never sets because
The sun it never sets. The sun it never rises."]
* [Matthew xvi. 3 ; for the following Bible references, see Mark iv. 39 ; Job
iii. 17 ; Joel ii. 31 ; Malachi iii. 10.]
LECTURE II
(Delivered on February 11, 1884)
March llth, 1884.
40. IT was impossible for me, this spring, to prepare, as I
wished to have done, two lectures for the London Institu-
tion : but finding its members more interested in the sub-
ject chosen than I had anticipated, I enlarged my lecture
at its second reading by some explanations and parentheses,
partly represented, and partly farther developed, in the fol-
lowing notes ; which led me on, however, as I arranged
them, into branches of the subject untouched in the former
lecture, and it seems to me of no inferior interest.
41. (Note 1; § 2, p. 9: "Dante has no word of the
storm-clouds") The vapour over the pool of Anger in the
Inferno, the clogging stench which rises from Caina, and
the fog of the circle of Anger in the Purgatorio resemble,1
indeed, the cloud of the Plague-wind very closely, — but are
conceived only as supernatural. The reader will no doubt
observe, throughout the following lecture, my own habit
of speaking of beautiful things as " natural," and of ugly ones
as " unnatural." In the conception of recent philosophy,
the world is one Kosmos in which diphtheria is held to be
as natural as song, and cholera as digestion. To my own
mind — and the more distinctly the more I see, know, and
feel — the Earth, as prepared for the abode of man, appears
distinctly ruled by agencies of health and disease, of which
the first may be aided by his industry, prudence, and piety ;
while the destroying laws are allowed to prevail against him,
in the degree in which he allows himself in idleness, folly,
1 [Purgatorio, xv. 142. For the "-pool of Anger," see Inferno, vii. 123. The
" clogging stench " rises, not from Caina, but from the quarters assigned to the
Flatterers in the second Bolgia of Circle viii. of Hell : see Inferno, xviii. 106 seq.]
42
LECTURE II 43
and vice. Had the point been distinctly indicated where the
degrees of adversity necessary for his discipline pass into
those intended for his punishment, the world would have
been put under a manifest theocracy; but the declaration
of the principle is at least distinct enough to have con-
vinced all sensitive and earnest persons, from the beginning
of speculation in the eyes and mind of Man : and it has
been put in my power by one of the singular chances
which have always helped me in my work when it was
in the right direction, to present to the University of
Oxford the most distinct expression of this first principle
of mediaeval Theology which, so far as I know, exists in
fifteenth-century art. It is one of the drawings of the
Florentine book which I bought for a thousand pounds,
against the British Museum,1 some ten or twelve years
since ; being a compendium of classic and mediaeval religious
symbolism. In the two pages of it, forming one picture,
given to Oxford, the delivery of the Law on Sinai is
represented on the left hand, (contrary to the Scriptural
narrative, but in deeper expression of the benediction of
the Sacred Law to all nations,) as in the midst of bright
and calm light, the figure of the Deity being supported by
luminous and level clouds, and attended by happy angels:
while opposite, on the right hand, the worship of the
Golden Calf is symbolized by a single decorated pillar,
with the calf on its summit, surrounded by the clouds and
darkness of a furious storm, issuing from the mouths of
fiends; — uprooting the trees, and throwing down the rocks,
above the broken tables of the Law, of which the frag-
ments lie in the foreground.
42. (Note 2 ; see § 3, p. 10 : " The beneficent rain-cloud
. . . capable of the most exquisite colouring under certain con-
ditions") These conditions are mainly in the arrangement
1 [Ultimately, however, Ruskin sold the book to the Museum for the same sum,
and the drawing, taken from it for presentation to Oxford, was replaced ; for
particulars, see Vol. XV. p. 380, Vol. XX. p. 335 n., and Vol. XXII. p. 426.
The two pages here described are reproduced on Plates 20 and 21 in A Florentine
Picture-Chronicle . . . by Maso Finiguerra, with critical and descriptive text by Sidney
C'olvin (1898).]
44 THE STORM-CLOUD
of the lower rain-clouds in flakes thin and detached enough
to be illuminated by early or late sunbeams : their textures
are then more softly blended than those of the upper cirri,
and have the qualities of painted, instead of burnished or
inflamed, colour.
They were thus described in the 4th chapter of the 7th
part of Modern Painters:1 —
" Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft
level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue ; or when of less extent,
gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above ; and
all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-colour,
and purple, and amber, and blue, not shining, but misty-soft, the barred
masses, when seen nearer, found to be woven in tresses of cloud, like floss
silk, looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain.
" No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, inimitable ;
Turner himself never caught them. Correggio, putting out his whole strength,
could have painted them, — no other man."
43. ( Note 3 ; see § 6, p. 12 : " Byron . . . the last Eng-
lishman who loved Greece."} I did not, in writing this sen-
tence, forget Mr. Gladstone's finely scholastic enthusiasm
for Homer;2 nor Mr. Newton's for Athenian — (I wish it
had not been also for Halicarnassian) sculpture. But Byron
loved Greece herself — through her death — and to his own;
while the subsequent refusal of England to give Greece
one of our own princes for a king,3 has always been held
by me the most ignoble, cowardly, and lamentable, of all
our base commercial impolicies.
44. (Note 4; § 6, p. 13.) "Deepening" clouds. — Byron
never uses an epithet vainly, — he is the most accurate, and
therefore the most powerful, of all modern describers. The
deepening of the cloud is essentially necessary to the redness
of the orb. Ordinary observers are continually unaware of
this fact, and imagine that a red sun can be darker than
1 [
2 [
[Vol. VII. p. 179.]
[For another reference to Mr. Gladstone's Homeric Studies, see Vol. XXXI.
?. 16 ; and for C. T. Newton's discoveries at Halicarnassus, Preeterita. ii. § 155
Vol. XXXV.).]
3 [For other references to this episode, see Time and Tide, §161 (Vol. XVII.
p. 449), and Vol. XVIII. p. 551.]
LECTURE II 45
the sky round it ! Thus Mr. Gould, though a professed
naturalist, and passing most of his life in the open air, over
and over again, in his British Birds, draws the setting sun
dark on the sky !
45. (Note 5; § 6, p. 13.) "Like the blood he predicts."
— The astrological power of the planet Mars was of course
ascribed to it in the same connection with its red colour.
The reader may be interested to see the notice, in Modern
Painters? of Turner's constant use of the same symbol;
partly an expression of his own personal feeling, partly, the
employment of a symbolic language known to all careful
readers of solar and stellar tradition : —
" He was very definitely in the habit of indicating the association of
any subject with circumstances of death, especially the death of multitudes,
by placing it under one of his most deeply crimsoned sunset skies.
"The colour of blood is thus plainly taken for the leading tone in the
storm-clouds above the ' Slave-ship.' It occurs with similar distinctness in
the much earlier picture of ' Ulysses and Polypheme,' in that of ' Napoleon
at St. Helena,' and, subdued by softer hues, in the ' Old Temeraire.'
" The sky of this Goldau is, in its scarlet and crimson, the deepest in
tone of all that I know in Turner's drawings.
" Another feeling, traceable in several of his former works, is an acute
sense of the contrast between the careless interests and idle pleasures of
daily life, and the state of those whose time for labour, or knowledge, or
delight, is passed for ever. There is evidence of this feeling in the intro-
duction of the boys at play in the churchyard of Kirkby Lonsdale, and
the boy climbing for his kite among the thickets above the little mountain
churchyard of Brignal-banks ; it is in the same tone of thought that he has
placed here the two figures fishing, leaning against these shattered flanks of
rock, — the sepulchral stones of the great mountain Field of Death."
46. (Note 6; § 6, p. 13.) "Thy lore unto calamity."—
It is, I believe, recognized by all who have in any degree be-
come interested in the traditions of Chaldean astrology, that
its warnings were distinct, — its promises deceitful. Horace
thus warns Leuconoe against reading the Babylonian num-
bers to learn the time of her death,2 — he does not imply
their promise of previous happiness ; and the continually
deceptive character of the Delphic oracle itself tempted
1 [In vol. iv. ch. xviii. § 24 (Vol. VI. p. 381).]
e#, i. 11: "Tu ne quaesieris."]
46 THE STORM-CLOUD
always rather to fatal than to fortunate conduct, unless the
inquirer were more than wise in his reading. Byron gathers
into the bitter question all the sorrow of former superstition,
while in the lines italicized, just above, he sums in the
briefest and plainest English, all that we yet know, or may
wisely think, about the Sun. It is the "Burning oracle"
(other oracles there are by sound, or feeling, but this by
fire) of all that live ; the only means of our accurate know-
ledge of the things round us, and that affect our lives : it
is the fountain of all life, — Byron does not say the wigin ;
— the origin of life would be the origin of the sun itself;
but it is the visible source of vital energy, as the spring is
of a stream, though the origin is the sea. "And symbol
of Him who bestows it." — This the sun has always been, to
every one who believes there is a bestower; and a symbol
so perfect and beautiful that it may also be thought of as
partly an apocalypse.
47. (Note 7; § 6, p. 14.) "More beautiful in that
variety." — This line, with the one italicized beneath, ex-
presses in Myrrha's mind, the feeling which I said, in the
outset,1 every thoughtful watcher of heaven necessarily had
in those old days ; whereas now, the variety is for the most
part, only in modes of disagreeableness ; and the vapour,
instead of adding light to the unclouded sky, takes away
the aspect and destroys the functions of sky altogether.
48. (Note 8; § 9, p. 16.) "Steam out of an engine
funnel." — Compare the sixth paragraph of Professor Tyn-
dall's Forms of Water, and the following seventh one,
in which the phenomenon of transparent steam becoming
opaque is thus explained : —
"Every bit of steam shrinks, when chilled, to a much more minute
particle of water. The liquid particles thus produced form a kind of water
dust of exceeding fineness, which floats in the air, and is called a cloud."
But the author does not tell us, in the first place, what
1 [See above, pp. 10-14.]
LECTURE II 47
is the shape or nature of a " bit of steam," nor, in the
second place, how the contraction of the individual bits of
steam is effected without any diminution of the whole mass
of them, but on the contrary, during its steady expansion;
in the third place he assumes that the particles of water
dust are solid, not vesicular, which is not yet ascertained ;
in the fourth place, he does not tell us how their number
and size are related to the quantity of invisible moisture in
the air; in the fifth place, he does not tell us how cool
invisible moisture differs from hot invisible moisture ; and
in the sixth, he does not tell us why the cool visible mois-
ture stays while the hot visible moisture melts away. So
much for the present state of " scientific " information, or
at least communicativeness, on the first and simplest con-
ditions of the problem before us !
49. In its wider range that problem embraces the total
mystery of volatile power in substance ; and of the visible
states consequent on sudden — and presumably, therefore,
imperfect — vaporization ; as the smoke of frankincense, or
the sacred fume of modern devotion which now fills the
inhabited world, as that of the rose and violet its deserts.
What, — it would be useful to know, is the actual bulk
of an atom of orange perfume ? — what of one of vapo-
rized tobacco, or gunpowder ? — and where do these artificial
vapours fall back in beneficent rain ? or through what
areas of atmosphere exist, as invisible, though perhaps not
innocuous, cloud ?
All these questions were put, closely and precisely, four-
and-twenty years ago, in the 1st chapter of the 7th part of
Modern Painters, paragraphs 4 to 9,1 of which I can here
allow space only for the last, which expresses the final
difficulties of the matter better than anything said in this
lecture : —
" But farther : these questions of volatility, and visibility, and hue, are
all complicated with those of shape. How is a cloud outlined ? Granted
whatever you choose to ask, concerning its material, or its aspect, its
1 [See Vol. VII. pp. 130-141.]
48 THE STORM-CLOUD
loftiness and luminousness, — how of its limitation ? What hews it into a
heap, or spins it into a web ? Cold is usually shapeless, I suppose, extend-
ing over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. You cannot
have in the open air, angles, and wedges, and coils, and cliffs, of cold.
Yet the vapour stops suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts
itself across the gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar; or braids
itself in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry ; or
falls into ripples, like sand ; or into waving shreds and tongues, as fire.
On what anvils and wheels is the vapour pointed, twisted, hammered,
whirled, as the potter's clay ? By what hands is the incense of the sea
built up into domes of marble ? "
50. (Note 9; § 10, p. 17.) The opposed conditions of
the higher and lower orders of cloud, with the balanced
intermediate one, are beautifully seen on mountain summits
of rock or earth. On snowy ones they are far more com-
plex : but on rock summits there are three distinct forms
of attached cloud in serene weather ; the first that of cloud
veil laid over them, and falling in folds through their
ravines, (the obliquely descending clouds of the entering
chorus in Aristophanes *) ; secondly, the ascending cloud,
which develops itself loosely and independently as it rises,
and does not attach itself to the hillside, while the falling
veil cloud clings to it close all the way down ; — and lastly
the throned cloud, which rests indeed on the mountain
summit, with its base, but rises high above into the sky,
continually changing its outlines, but holding its seat per-
haps all day long.
These three forms of cloud belong exclusively to calm
weather; attached drift cloud, (see Note 11) can only be
formed in the wind.
51. (Note 10; § 11, p. 17: " Tyndatt explains the twisted
beds of the Jungfrau by intimating that the Matter/torn is
growing flat "} Glaciers of the Alps, page 10: —
"Let a pound weight be placed upon a cube of granite" (size of sup-
posed cube not mentioned), " the cube is flattened, though in an infinitesimal
degree. Let the weight be removed, the cube remains a little flattened.
1 [Clouds, 325: see Modern Painters, vol. i. (Vol. III. p. 26 /».).]
LECTURE II 49
Let us call the cube thus flattened No. 1. Starting with No. 1 as a
new mass, let the pound weight be laid upon it. We have a more
flattened mass, No. 2. ... Apply this to squeezed rocks, to those, for
example, which form the base of an obelisk like the Matterhorn, — the
conclusion seems inevitable that the mountain is sinking by its own weight,"
etc., etc.
Similarly the Nelson statue must be gradually flattening
the Nelson column, — and in time Cleopatra's needle will
be as flat as her pincushion ?
52. (Note 11 ; § 11, p. 17 : "... or the clouds on the
lee side of the Matterhorn by the winds rubbing against the
windward side"} Glaciers of the Alps, page 146 : —
"The sun was near the western horizon, and I remained alone upon
the Grat to see his last beams illuminate the mountains, which, with one
exception, were without a trace of cloud.
" This exception was the Matterhorn, the appearance of which was
extremely instructive. The obelisk appeared to be divided in two halves
by a vertical line, drawn from its summit half-way down, to the windward
of which we had the bare cliffs of the mountain ; and to the left of it a
cloud which appeared to cling tenaciously to the rocks.
" In reality, however, there was no clinging ; the condensed vapour
incessantly got away, but it was ever renewed, and thus a river of cloud
had been sent from the mountain over the valley of Aosta. The wind, in
fact, blew lightly up the valley of St. Nicholas, charged with moisture,
and when the air that held it rubbed against the cold cone of the Matter-
horn, the vapour was chilled and precipitated in his lee."
It is not explained, why the wind was not chilled by
rubbing against any of the neighbouring mountains, nor
why the cone of the Matterhorn, mostly of rock, should
be colder than cones of snow. The phenomenon was first
described by De Saussure, who gives the same explana-
tion as Tyndall; and from whom, in the first volume of
Modern Painters, I adopted it without sufficient examina-
tion.1 Afterwards I re-examined it, and showed its fallacy,
with respect to the cap or helmet cloud, in the fifth volume
of Modern Painters, page 128,2 in the terms given in the
1 [See Vol. III. pp. 371-372.]
• [The reference is to the first edition: see now Vol. VII. p. 164.]
50 THE STORM-CLOUD
subjoined note,* but I still retained the explanation of
Saussure for the lee-side cloud, engraving in Plate 69 the
modes of its occurrence on the Aiguille Dru, of which the
most ordinary one was afterwards represented by Tyndall in
his Glaciers of the Alps? under the title of "Banner-cloud."
Its less imaginative title, in Modern Painters? of " Lee-side
cloud," is more comprehensive, for this cloud forms often
under the brows of far-terraced precipices, where it has no
resemblance to a banner. No true explanation of it has
ever yet been given ; for the first condition of the problem
has hitherto been unobserved, — namely, that such cloud
is constant in certain states of weather, under precipitous
rocks; — but never developed with distinctness by domes
of snow.
53. But my former expansion of Saussure's theory is at
least closer to the facts than Professor Tyndall's "rubbing
* '•' But both Saussure and I ought to have known, — we did know, but
did not think of it, — that the covering or cap-cloud forms on hot summits
as well as cold ones ; — that the red and bare rocks of Mont Pilate, hotter,
certainly, after a day's sunshine than the cold storm-wind which sweeps
to them from the Alps, nevertheless have been renowned for their helmet
of cloud, ever since the Romans watched the cloven summit, grey against
the south, from the ramparts of Vindonissa, giving it the name from which
the good Catholics of Lucerne have warped out their favourite piece of
terrific sacred biography. And both my master and I should also have
reflected that if our theory about its formation had been generally true,
the helmet cloud ought to form on every cold summit, at the approach of
rain, in approximating proportions to the bulk of the glaciers ; which is so
far from being the case that not only (A) the cap-cloud may often be seen
on lower summits of grass or rock, while the higher ones are splendid \y
clear (which may be accounted for by supposing the wind containing the
moisture not to have risen so high) ; but (B) the cap-cloud always shows
a preference for hills of a conical form, such as the Mole or Niesen, which
can have very little power in chilling the air, even supposing they were
cold themselves ; while it will entirely refuse to form huge masses of
mountain, which, supposing them of chilly temperament, must have dis-
comforted the atmosphere in their neighbourhood for leagues."
1 [Not in Glaciers of the Alps, but as frontispiece to The Forma of Water in
Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers, 1872 (" Cloud Banner of the Aiguille du
u").]
* [Vol. v. part vii. ch. iii. § 5 (Vol. VII. pp. 165-166).]
LECTURE II
51
against the rocks," and I therefore allow room for it here,
with its illustrative woodcut : —
" When a moist wind blows in clear weather over a cold summit, it
has not time to get chilled as it approaches the rock, and therefore the
air remains clear, and the sky bright on the windward side ; but under
the lee of the peak, there is partly a back eddy, and partly still air; and
in that lull and eddy the wind gets
time to be chilled by the rock, and
the cloud appears, as a boiling mass
of white vapour, rising continually with
the return current to the upper edge
of the mountain, where it is caught
by the straight wind and partly torn,
partly melted away in broken frag-
ments.
" In the accompanying figure, the
dark mass represents the mountain peak, the arrow the main direction of
the wind, the curved lines show the directions of such current and its
concentration, and the dotted line encloses the space in which cloud forms
densely, floating away beyond and above in irregular tongues and flakes."
54. (Note 12; § 12, p. 18.) See below, on the different
uses of the word "reflection," Note 14, and note that
throughout this lecture I use the words "aqueous mole-
cules," alike of water liquid or vaporized, not knowing
under what conditions or at what temperatures water-dust
becomes water-gas ; and still less, supposing pure water-gas
blue, and pure air blue, . what are the changes in either
which make them what sailors call " dirty " ; but it is one
of the worst omissions of the previous lecture, that I
have not stated among the characters of the plague-cloud
that it is always dirty,* and never blue under any con-
ditions, neither when deep in the distance, nor when in the
electric states which produce sulphurous blues in natural
cloud. But see the next note.
* In my final collation of the lectures given at Oxford last year on
the Art of England, I shall have occasion to take notice of the effect of
this character of plague-cloud on our younger painters, who have perhaps
never in their lives seen a clean sky ! *
1 [The reference is to the Appendix to the delivered lectures which Ruskin
added when publishing them : see §§ 198 seq. (Vol. XXXIII. pp. 398-402).]
XXXIV. D
52 THE STORM-CLOUD
55. (Note 18; § 15, p. 20.) Black clouds.— For the
sudden and extreme local blackness of thundercloud, see
Turner's drawing of Winchelsea,1 (England series,) and
compare Homer, of the Ajaces, in the 4th book of the
Iliad, — (1 came on the passage in verifying Mr. Hill's
quotation 2 from the 5th) : —
" a/Aa Se v€<£os CHTCTO Trefwv.
' 12s 8' or' aTrb (TKOTTI^S etSev vt<£os awroXos av7J/>
'Eipxopcvov Kara TTOVTOV VTTO Zeffrvpoto IWT)S,
T«j) 8f T' , avfvOcv eovri, /ieXai/Tfpov, rjvrf Tricrcra
\ lov Kara TTOVTOV, a-yct 8e re XatXaTra Tr
Total a// AiavTctrcrii' a/arji'^ocov
A^ibv «s woXtjMov TrvKivat KIVWTO
Kvaveai." 3
I give Chapman's version — noting only that his breath
of Zephyrus, ought to have been " cry "or " roar " of
Zephyrus, the blackness of the cloud being as much con-
nected with the wildness of the wind as, in the formerly
quoted passage, its brightness with calm of air.
"Behind them hid the ground
A cloud of foot, that seemed to smoke. And as a Goatherd spies
On some hill top, out of the sea a rainy vapour rise,
Driven by the breath of Zephyrus, which though far off he rest,
Comes on as black as pitch, and brings a tempest in his breast
Whereat he, frighted, drives his herds apace into a den ;
So, darkening earth, with swords and shields, showed these with
all their men."
I add here Chapman's version of the other passage,
which is extremely beautiful and close to the text, while
Pope's is hopelessly erroneous.4
" Their ground they still made good,
And in their silence and set powers, like fair still clouds they stood,
With which Jove crowns the tops of hills in any quiet day
When Boreas, and the ruder winds that use to drive away
Air's dusky vapours, being loose, in many a whistling gale,
Are pleasingly bound up and calm, and not a breath exhale."
1 [In Raskin's collection : see his notes upon it in Vol. XIII. p. 437.]
2 'See above, p. 12.]
1 'Iliad, iv. 274-282.]
* [For a similar comparison between Chapman's version of Homer, and Pope's,
see Proserpina (Vol. XXV. p. 275).]
LECTURE II 53
56. (Note 14; § 17, p. 21.) " Reflected."— The reader
must be warned in this place of the difference implied by
my use of the word " cast " in § 16, and " reflected " here :
that is to say, between light or colour which an object
possesses, whatever the angle it is seen at, and the light
which it reverberates at one angle only. The Alps, under
the rose * of sunset, are exactly of the same colour whether
you see them from Berne or Schaffhausen. But the gilding
to our eyes of a burnished cloud depends, I believe, at
least for a measure of its lustre, upon the angle at which
the rays incident upon it are reflected to the eye, just as
much as the glittering of the sea beneath it — or the spark-
ling of the windows of the houses on the shore.
57. Previously, at page 18, in calling the molecules of
transparent atmosphere "absolutely" unreflective of light,
I mean, in like manner, unreflective from their surfaces.
Their blue colour seen against a dark ground is indeed
a kind of reflection, but one of which I do not under-
stand the nature. It is seen most simply in wood smoke,
blue against trees, brown against clear light ; but in both
* In speaking, at p. 20 of the first lecture, of the limits of depth in
the rose-colour cast on snow, I ought to have noted the greater strength
of the tint possible under the light of the tropics. The following passage,
in Mr. Cunningham's Natural History of the Strait of Magellan,1 is to me
of the greatest interest, because of the beautiful effect described as seen
on the occasion of his visit to " the small town of Santa Rosa " (near
Valparaiso). "The day, though clear, had not been sunny, so that,
although the snowy heights of the Andes had been distinctly visible
throughout the greater part of our journey, they had not been illuminated
by the rays of the sun. But now, as we turned the corner of a street,
the chain of the Cordillera suddenly burst on our gaze in such a blaze of
splendour that it almost seemed as if the windows of heaven had been
opened for a moment, permitting a flood of crimson light to stream forth
upon the snow. The sight was so unexpected, and so transcend ently
magnificent, that a breathless silence fell upon us for a few moments,
while even the driver stopped his horses. This deep red glow lasted for
three or four minutes, and then rapidly faded into that lovely rosy hue
so characteristic of snow at sunset among the Alps."
1 [For another reference to this book, see Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. p. 344.]
54 THE STORM-CLOUD
cases the colour is communicated to (or left in) the trans-
mitted rays.
So also the green of the sky (p. 26) is said to be
given by transmitted light, yellow rays passing through blue
air : much yet remains to be known respecting translucent
colours of this kind ; only let them always be clearly dis-
tinguished in our minds from the firmly possessed colour
of opaque substances, like grass or malachite.
58. (Note 15; § 19, p. 22.) Diffraction.— Since these
passages were written, I have been led, in conversation with
a scientific friend, to doubt my statement that the coloured
portions of the lighted clouds were brighter than the white
ones. He was convinced that the resolution of the rays
would diminish their power, and in thinking over the matter,
I am disposed to agree with him, although my impres-
sion at the time has been always that the diffracted colours
rose out of the white, as a rainbow does out of the grey.
But whatever the facts may be, in this respect the statement
in the text of the impossibility of representing diffracted
colour in painting is equally true. It may be that the
resolved hues are darker than the white, as coloured panes
in a window are darker than the colourless glass, but all
are alike in a key which no artifice of painting can
approach.
59. For the rest, the phenomena of diffraction are not
yet arranged systematically enough to be usefully discussed :
some of them involving the resolution of the light, and
others merely its intensification. My attention was first
drawn to them near St. Laurent, on the Jura mountains,
by the vivid reflection, (so it seemed,) of the image of the
sun from a particular point of a cloud in the west, after
the sun itself was beneath the horizon : but in this image
there were no prismatic colours, neither is the constantly
seen metamorphosis of pine forests into silver filigree on
ridges behind which the sun is rising or setting, accom-
panied with any prismatic hue ; the trees become luminous,
LECTURE II 55
but not iridescent : on the other hand, in his great account
of his ascent of Mont Blanc with Mr. Huxley, Professor
Tyndall thus describes the sun's remarkable behaviour on
that occasion : —
" As we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the Grand
Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to our left, and, surrounded
by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous colours, blazed down
upon us." (Glaciers of the Alps, p. 76.)
Nothing irritates me more, myself, than having the
colour of my own descriptions of phenomena in anywise
attributed by the reader to accidental states either of my
mind or body ; — but I cannot, for once, forbear at least the
innocent question to Professor Tyndall, whether the extreme
beauty of these " interference spectra " may not have been
partly owing to the extreme sobriety of the observer? no
refreshment, it appears, having been attainable the night
before at the Grands Mulcts, except the beverage diluted
with dirty snow, of which I have elsewhere quoted the
Professor's pensive report, — " my memory of that tea is not
pleasant."1
60. (Note 16; § 21, p. 25.) "Either stationary or slow
in motion, reflecting unresolved light."
The rate of motion is of course not essentially connected
with the method of illumination ; their connection, in this
instance, needs explanation of some points which could not
be dealt with in the time of a single lecture.
It is before said,2 with reserve only, that "a cloud is
where it is seen, and is not where it is not seen." But
thirty years ago, in Modern Painters, I pointed out (see
the paragraph quoted in note 8th3) the extreme difficulty
of arriving at the cause of cloud outline, or explaining
how, if we admitted at any given moment the atmospheric
moisture to be generally diffused, it could be chilled by
1 [See Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. p. 144.]
2 [Set; above, p. 15.]
8 {Above, ]>. 4~.]
56 THE STORM-CLOUD
formal chills into formal clouds. How, for instance, in the
upper cirri, a thousand little chills, alternating with a
thousand little warmths, could stand still as a thousand
little feathers.
But the first step to any elucidation of the matter is in
the firmly fixing in our minds the difference between wind-
less clouds, unaffected by any conceivable local accident,
and windy clouds, affected by some change in their circum-
stances as they move.
In the sunset at Abbeville, represented in my first
diagram,1 the air is absolutely calm at the ground sur-
face, and the motion of its upper currents extremely slow.
There is no local reason assignable for the presence of
the cirri above, or of the thundercloud below. There is
no conceivable cause either in the geology, or the moral
character, of the two sides of the town of Abbeville, to
explain why there should be decorative fresco on the sky
over the southern suburb, and a muttering heap of gloom
and danger over the northern. The electric cloud is as
calm in motion as the harmless one: it changes its form,
indeed, but imperceptibly ; and, so far as can be discerned,
only at its own will is exalted, and with its own consent
abased.
But in my second diagram are shown forms of vapour
sustaining at every instant all kinds of varying local in-
fluences ; beneath, fastened down by mountain attraction,
above, flung afar by distracting winds ; here, spread abroad
into blanched sheets beneath the sunshine, and presently
gathered into strands of coiled cordage in the shade. Their
total existence is in metamorphosis, and their every aspect
a surprise, or a deceit.
61. (Note 17 ; § 21, p. 25.) " Finely comminuted water
or ice" — My impression that these clouds were glacial was
at once confirmed by a member of my audience, Dr. John
1 [See § 18; and Fig. 1 on Plate I. (p. 22).]
LECTURE II 57
Rae, in conversation after the lecture, in which he com-
municated to me the perfectly definite observations which
he has had the kindness to set down with their dates for
me, in the following letter: —
" 4, ADDISON GARDENS, KENSINGTON, 4/A Feb., 1884.
" DEAR SIR, — I have looked up my old journal of thirty years ago,
written in pencil because it was impossible to keep ink unfrozen in the
snow-hut in which I passed the winter of 1853-4, at Repulse Bay, on the
Arctic Circle.*
"On the 1st of February, 1854, I find the following: —
'"A beautiful appearance of some cirrus clouds near the sun, the cen-
tral part of the cloud being of a fine pink or red, then green, and pink
fringe. This continued for about a quarter of an hour. The same was
observed on the 27th of the month, but not so bright. Distance of clouds
from sun, from 3° to 6°.'
" On the 1st February the temperature was 38° below zero, and on the
27th February 26° below.
" ' On the 23rd and 30th (of March) the same splendid appearance of
clouds as mentioned in last month's journal was observed. On the first of
these days, about 10.30 A.M., it was extremely beautiful. The clouds were
about 8° or 10° from the sun, below him and slightly to the eastward, —
having a green fringe all round, then pink ; the centre part at first green,
and then pink or red.'
"The temperature was 21° below zero, Fahrenheit.
" There may have been other colours — blue, perhaps — but I merely noted
the most prominent; and what I call green may have been bluish, although
I do not mention this last colour in my notes.
" From the lowness of the temperature at the time, the clouds must have
been frozen moisture.
" The phenomenon is by no means common, even in the Arctic zone.
" The second beautiful cloud-picture shown this afternoon l brought so
visibly to my memory the appearance seen by me as above described, that
I could not avoid remarking upon it. — Believe me very truly yours,
"JOHN RAE." (M.D., F.R.S.)
* I trust that Dr. Rae will forgive my making the reader better aware of
the real value of this communication by allowing him to see also the follow-
ing passage from the kind private letter by which it was supplemented : —
"Many years in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, I and my men
became educated for Arctic work, in which I was five different times em-
ployed, in two of which expeditions we lived wholly by our own hunting
and fishing for twelve months, one in a stone house (very disagreeable),
and another winter in a snow hut (better), without tfire of any kind to warm
us. On the first of these expeditions, 1846-7, my little party, there being
no officer but myself, surveyed seven hundred miles of coast of Arctic
America by a sledge journey, which Parry, Ross, Bach, and Lyon had
1 [That is, the "August Sky at Brantwood," Fig. 2 on Plate I. (p. 22).]
58 THE STORM-CLOUD
62. Now this letter enables me to leave the elements of
your problem for you in very clear terms.
Your sky — altogether — may be composed of one or more
of four things : —
Molecules of water in warm weather.
Molecules of ice in cold weather.
Molecules of water-vapour in warm weather.
Molecules of ice-vapour in cold weather.
But of the size, distances, or modes of attraction between
these different kinds of particles, I find no definite infor-
mation anywhere, except the somewhat vague statement by
Sir William Thomson, that "if a drop of water could be
magnified so as to be as large as the earth, and have a
diameter of eight thousand miles, then a molecule of this
water in it would appear somewhat larger than a shot"
(What kind of shot? ) "and somewhat smaller than a cricket-
63. And as I finally review the common accounts given
of cloud formation, I find it quite hopeless for the general
reader to deal with the quantity of points which have to
be kept in mind and severally valued, before he can account
for any given phenomena. I have myself, in many of the
passages of Modern Painters before referred to, conceived
of cloud too narrowly as always produced by cold, whereas
the temperature of a cloud must continually, like that of
our visible breath in frosty weather, or of the visible current
of steam, or the smoking of a warm lake surface under
sudden frost, be above that of the surrounding atmosphere ;
and yet I never remember entering a cloud without being
failed to accomplish, costing the country about £70,000 or £80,000 at the
lowest computation. The total expense of my little party, including my
own pay, was under fourteen hundred pounds sterling.
" My Arctic work has been recognized by the award of the founder's
gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society (before the completion of
the whole of it)."
1 [This statement by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) is quoted by Raskin
from § 8 (p. 6) of Balfour Stewart's Conservation of Energy (for which book, see
below, p. 61).]
LECTURE II 59
chilled by it, and the darkness of the plague-wind, unless
in electric states of the air, is always accompanied by
deadly chill.
64. Nor, so far as I can read, has any proper account
yet been given of the balance, in serene air, of the warm
air under the cold, in which the warm air is at once com-
pressed by weight, and expanded by heat, and the cold
air is thinned by its elevation, yet contracted by its cold.
There is indeed no possibility of embracing the conditions
in a single sentence, any more than in a single thought.
But the practical balance is effected in calm air, so that its
lower strata have no tendency to rise, like the air in a fire
balloon, nor its higher strata to fall, unless they congeal
into rain or snow.
I believe it will be an extreme benefit to my younger
readers if I write for them a little Grammar of Ice and
Air? collecting the known facts on all these matters, and
I am much minded to put by my ecclesiastical history2 for
a while, in order to relate what is legible of the history of
the visible Heaven.
65. (Note 18; § 22, p. 26.) "You can't get a billiard
ball to fall a-shivering on its own account." — I am under
correction in this statement by the Lucasian professor of
Cambridge, with respect to the molecules of bodies capable
of " epipolizing " light :—
" Nothing seems more natural than to suppose that the incident vibra-
tions of the luminiferous ether produce vibratory movements among the
ultimate molecules of sensitive substances, and that the molecules in return,
swinging on their oivn account, produce vibrations in the luminous ether, and
thus cause the sensation of light. The periodic times of these vibrations
depend upon the periods in \vhich the molecules are disposed to giving."
("On the Change of Refrangibility of Light," p. 54p.3)
1 [On this intended book, see the Introduction to Vol. XXVI. p. Ixii.]
2 [Our Fathers have Told Us (Vol. XXXIII.).]
1 Ruskin quotes from the paper, thus entitled, by Sir George Gabriel Stokes,
F.R.S. (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge), in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for 1852, pp. 463-562. The paper is
reprinted in vol. iii. (see p. 388) of Stokes's Mathematical and Physical Papers
(1901).
60 THE STORM-CLOUD
It seems to me a pleasant conclusion, this, of recent
science, and suggestive of a perfectly regenerate theology.
The " Let there be light " : of the former Creation is first
expanded into "Let there be a disposition of the mole-
cules to swing," and the destinies of mankind, no less than
the vitality of the universe, depend thereafter upon this
amiable, but perhaps capricious, and at all events not easily
influenced or anticipated, disposition !
Is it not also strange that in a treatise entering into so
high mathematical analysis as that from which I quote, the
false word " swing," expressing the action of a body liable
to continuous arrest by gravitation, should be employed to
signify the oscillation, wholly unaffected by gravity, of sub-
stance in which the motion once originated, may cease only
with the essence of the body ?
66. It is true that in men of high scientific calibre, such
as the writer in this instance, carelessness in expression does
not affect the security of their conclusions. But in men
of lower rank, mental defects in language indicate fatal
flaws in thought.2 And although the constant habit to
which I owe my (often foolishly praised 3) " command of
language" — of never allowing a sentence to pass proof in
which I have not considered whether, for the vital word
in it, a better could be found in the dictionary — makes me
somewhat morbidly intolerant of careless diction, it may be
taken for an extremely useful and practical rule, that if a
man can think clearly he will write well, and that no good
science was ever written in bad English. So that, before
you consider whether a scientific author says a true or a
false thing, you had better first look if he is able properly
to say anything — and secondly, whether his conceit permits
him to say anything properly.
67. Thus, when Professor Tyndall, endeavouring to
write poetically of the sun, tells you that "The lilies of
Genesis i. 3.]
'Compare Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. p. 138.1
See Vol. XXV. p. 14.]
LECTURE II Gl
the field are his workmanship," l you may observe, first,
that since the sun is not a man, nothing that he does is
workmanship; while even the figurative statement that he
rejoices as a strong man to run his course,2 is one which
Professor Tyndall has no intention whatever of admitting.
And you may then observe, in the second place, that, if
even in that figurative sense, the lilies of the field are the
sun's workmanship, in the same sense the lilies of the hot-
house are the stove's workmanship, — and in perfectly logical
parallel, you, who are alive here to listen to me, because
you have been warmed and fed through the winter, are
the workmanship of your own coal-scuttles.
68. Again, when Mr. Balfour Stewart begins a treatise
on The Conservation of Energy, — which is to conclude, as
we shall see presently,3 with the prophecy of its total ex-
tinction as far as the present world is concerned, — by cloth-
ing in a " properly scientific garb " 4 our innocent impression
that there is some difference between the blow of a rifle
stock and a rifle ball, he prepares for the scientific toilette
by telling us in italics that " the something which the rifle
ball possesses in contradistinction to the rifle stock is clearly
the power of overcoming resistance," since "it can pene-
trate through oak-wood or through water — or (alas ! that it
should be so often tried) through the human body ; and
this power of penetration " (italics now mine) " is the dis-
tinguishing cJiaracteristic of a substance moving with very
great velocity. Let us define by the term * Energy,' this
power which the rifle ball possesses of overcoming obstacles,
or of doing work."
Now, had Mr. Stewart been a better scholar, he would
have felt, even if he had not known, that the Greek word
" energy " could only be applied to the living — and of living,
with perfect propriety only to the mental, action of animals,
1 {Heat as a Mode of Motion, 1863, p. 432 : the passage is quoted in Vol. XXII.
p. 196.]
1 [Psalms xix. 5.]
* [See below, p. 76.]
• [See § 18 (p. 13) of The Conservation of Energy, being an Elementary Treatise
on Energy and its Law*, 1874.]
62 THE STORM-CLOUD
and that it could no more be applied as a "scientific garb,"
to the flight of a rifle ball, than to the fall of a dead body.
And, if he had attained thus much, even of the science of
language, it is just possible that the small forte and faculty
of thought he himself possesses might have been energized
so far as to perceive that the force of all inertly moving
bodies, whether rifle stock, rifle ball, or rolling world, is
under precisely one and the same relation to their weights
and velocities ; that the effect of their impact depends —
not merely on their pace, but their constitution ; and on
the relative forms and stability of the substances they
encounter, and that there is no more quality of Energy,
though much less quality of Art, in the swiftly penetrating
shot, or crushing ball, than in the deliberately contempla-
tive and administrative puncture by a gnat's proboscis, or
a sempstress' needle.
69. Mistakes of this kind, beginning with affectations
of diction, do not always invalidate general statements or
conclusions, — for a bad writer often equivocates out of a
blunder as he equivocates into one, — but I have been strict
in pointing out the confusions of idea admitted in scientific
books between the movement of a swing, that of a sounding
violin chord, and that of an agitated liquid, because these
confusions have actually enabled Professor Tyndall to keep
the scientific world in darkness as to the real nature of
glacier motion for the last twenty years ; l and to induce a
resultant quantity of aberration in the scientific mind con-
cerning glacial erosion, of which another twenty years will
scarcely undo the damage.
70. (Note 19; § 36, p. 39.) "Force and pace." — Among
the nearer questions which the careless terminology on
which I have dwelt in the above note has left unsettled,
I believe the reader will be surprised, as much as I am
myself, to find that of the mode of impulse in a common
gust of wind ! Whence is its strength communicated to
1 [See on this subject, Vol. XXVI. pp. xxxiii.-xl.]
LECTURE II 63
it, and how gathered in it? and what is the difference of
manner in the impulse between compressible gas and incom-
pressible fluid ? For instance : The water at the head of
a weir is passing every instant from slower into quicker
motion ; but (until broken in the air) the fast flowing water
is just as dense as the slowly flowing water. But a fan
alternately compresses and rarities the air between it and
the cheek, and the violence of a destructive gust in a gale of
wind means a momentary increase in velocity and density
of which I cannot myself in the least explain, — and find in
no book on dynamics explained, — the mechanical causation.
71. The following letter, from a friend whose observa-
tions on natural history for the last seven or eight years
have been consistently valuable and instructive to me,1 will
be found, with that subjoined in the note, in various ways
interesting ; but especially in its notice of the inefficiency
of ordinary instrumental registry in such matters : —
"6, MOIRA PJ..ACE, SOUTHAMPTON, Feb. 8th, 1884.
" DEAR MR. RUSKIN, — Some time since I troubled you with a note or
two about sea-birds, etc. . . . but perhaps I should never have ventured to
trouble you again, had not your lecture on the ' Storm Clouds ' touched
a subject which has deeply interested me for years past. I had, of course,
no idea that you had noticed this thing, though I might have known
that, living the life you do, you must have done so. As for me, it has
been a source of perplexity for years : so much so, that I began to wonder
at times whether I was not under some mental delusion about it, until
the strange theatrical displays of the last few months, for which I was
more or less prepared, led so many to use their eyes, unmuzzled by brass
or glass, for a time. I know you do not bother, or care much to read
newspapers, but I have taken the liberty of cutting out and sending a
letter of mine, sent on the 1st January to an evening paper,* upon this
* "THE LOOK OF THE SKY
"To the Editor of the 'St. James's Gazette'
" SIR, — I have been a very constant though not a scientific observer of
the sky for a period of forty years ; and I confess to a certain feeling of
astonishment at the way in which the 'recent celestial phenomena' seem
to have taken the whole body of scientific observers by surprise. It
1 [For other letters from 11. C. Leslie, see Vol. XXV. pp. liv., 58, 177-179, 183 ;
Vol. XXXIII. p. 217 ; and Dilecta (Vol. XXXV.). For the sunsets in the autumn
of 1883, see below, p. 78.]
64 THE STORM-CLOUD
subject, thinking you might like to know that one person, at any rate, has
seen that strange, bleared look about the sun, shining so seldom except
through a ghastly glare of pale, persistent haze. May it be that the sin-
gular colouring of the sunsets marks an end of this long period of plague-
cloud, and that in them we have promise of steadier weather ? (No : those
sunsets were entirely distinct phenomena, and promised, if anything, only
evil.— R.)
" I was glad to see that in your lecture you gave the dependants upon
the instrument-makers a warning.1 On the 26th I had a heavy sailing-boat
lifted and blown, from where she lay hauled up, a distance of four feet,
which, as the boat has four hundred-weight of iron upon her keel, gives a
wind-gust, or force, not easily measured by instruments. — Believe me, dear
Mr. Ruskin, yours sincerely,
" ROBT. C. LESLIE."
72. I am especially delighted, in this letter, by my
friend's vigorously accurate expression, eyes "unmuzzled by
would even appear that something like these extraordinary sunsets was
necessary to call the attention of such observers to what has long been a
source of perplexity to a variety of common folk, like sailors, farmers, and
fishermen. But to such people the look of the weather, and what comes
of that look, is of far more consequence than the exact amount of ozone
or the depth or width of a band of the spectrum.
" Now, to all such observers, including myself, it has been plain that
of late neither the look of the sky nor the character of the weather has
been, as we should say, what it used to be ; and those whose eyes were
strong enough to look now and then toward the sun have noticed a very
marked increase of what some would call a watery look about him, which
might perhaps be better expressed as a white sheen or glare, at times
developing into solar halo or mock suns, as noted in your paper of the
2nd of October last year. A fisherman would describe it as 'white and
davery-like.' So far as my observation goes, this appearance was only
absent here for a limited period during the present summer, when we
had a week or two of nearly normal weather; the summer before it was
seldom absent.
" Again, those whose business or pleasure has depended on the use of
wind-power have all remarked the strange persistence of hard westerly
and easterly winds, the westerly ones at times partaking of an almost
trade-wind-like force and character. The summer of 1882 was especially
remarkable for these winds, while each stormy November has been fol-
lowed by a period about mid-winter of mild calm weather with dense fog.
During these strong winds in summer and early autumn the weather would
remain bright and sunny, and to a landsman would be not remarkable
in any Avay, while the barometer has been little affected by them ; but it
has been often observed by those employed on the water that when it
ceased blowing half a gale the sky at once became overcast, with clamp
weather or rain. This may all seem common enough to most people ; but
1 [See above, p. 39.]
LECTURE II 65
brass or glass." I have had occasion continually, in my
art-lectures,1 to dwell on the great law of human perception
and power, that the beauty which is good for us is pre-
pared for the natural focus of the sight, and the sounds
which are delightful to us for the natural power of the
nerves of the ear; and the art which is admirable in us, is
the exercise of our own bodily powers, and not carving
by sand-blast, nor oratorizing through a speaking trumpet,
nor dancing with spring heels. But more recently, I have
to those accustomed to gauge the wind by the number of reefs wanted
in a mainsail or foresail it was not so ; and the number of consecutive days
when two or more reefs have been kept tied down during the last few
summers has been remarkable — alternating at times with equally persistent
spells of calm and fog such as we are now passing through. Again, we
have had an unusually early appearance of ice in the Atlantic, and most
abnormal weather over Central Europe ; while in a letter I have just re-
ceived from an old hand on board a large Australian clipper, he speaks
of heavy gales and big seas off that coast in almost the height of their
summer.
"Now, upon all this, in our season of long twilights, we have bursting
upon us some clear weather ; with a display of cloud-forms or vapour at
such an elevation that, looking at them one day through an opening in
the nearer clouds, they seemed so distant as to resemble nothing but the
delicate grain of ivory upon a billiard-ball. And yet with the fact that
two-thirds of this earth is covered with water, and bearing in mind the
effect which a very small increase of sun-power would have in producing
cloud and lifting it above its normal level for a time, we are asked to
believe that this sheen is all dust of some kind or other, in order to
explain what are now known as the ' recent sunsets ' : though I venture
to think that we shall see more of them yet when the sun comes our
way again.
" At first sight, increased sun-power would seem to mean more sunshine ;
but a little reflection would show us that this would not be for long, while
any considerable addition to the sun's power would be followed by such a
vast increase of vapour that we should only see him, in our latitudes,
at very short intervals. I am aware that all this is most unscientific ; but
I have read column after column of explanation written by those who ai-e
supposed to know all about such things, and find myself not a jot the
wiser for it. Do you know anybody who is ? — I am, Sir, your obedient
servant,
"AN UNSCIENTIFIC OBSERVER. (R. LESLIE.)
"January \."
1 [See, cm these points, in connexion with (1) eyes v. microscopes, Vol. XXXIII.
p. 346 (and the other places there noted) ; (2) the natural nerves of the ear,
Vol. XXII. p. 510; (3) art and bodilv powers, ffe. p. 347.]
66 THE STORM-CLOUD
become convinced that even in matters of science, although
every added mechanical power has its proper use and sphere,
yet the things which are vital to our happiness and pros-
perity can only be known by the rational use and subtle
skill of our natural powers. We may trust the instrument
with the prophecy of storm, or registry of rainfall ; but the
conditions of atmospheric change, on which depend the
health of animals and fruitfulness of seeds, can only be
discerned by the eye and the bodily sense.
73. Take, for simplest and nearest example, this ques-
tion of the stress of wind. It is not the actual power that
is immeasurable, if only it would stand to be measured !
Instruments could easily now be invented which would
register not only a blast that could lift a sailing boat, but
one that would sink a ship of the line. But, lucklessly —
the blast won't pose to the instrument ! nor can the instru-
ment be adjusted to the blast. In the gale of which my
friend speaks in his next letter, 26th January, a gust came
down the hill above Coniston village upon two old oaks,
which were well rooted in the slate rock, and some fifty or
sixty feet high — the one, some twenty yards below the
other. The blast tore the highest out of the ground, peel-
ing its roots from the rock as one peels an orange — swept
the head of the lower tree away with it in one ruin,
and snapped the two leader branches of the upper one
over the other's stump, as one would break one's cane
over some people's heads, if one got the chance. In
wind action of this kind the amount of actual force used
is the least part of the business; — it is the suddenness of
its concentration, and the lifting and twisting strength, as
of a wrestler, which make the blast fatal; none of which
elements of storm-power can be recognized by mechanical
tests.
74. In my friend's next letter, however, he gives us
some evidence of the consistent strength of this same gale,
and of the electric conditions which attended it : — the
prefatory notice of his pet bird I had meant for Love's
LECTURE II 67
Meinie, but it will help us through the grimness of our
studies here.
"March 3rd, 1884.
" My small blackheaded gull Jack is still flourishing, and the time is
coming when I look for that singularly sudden change in the plumage of his
head which took place last March. I have asked all my ocean-going friends
to note whether these little birds are not the gulls par excellence of the
sea; and so far all I have heard from them confirms this. It seems almost
incredible ; but my son, a sailor, who met that hurricane of the 26th of
January, writes to me to say that out in the Bay of Biscay on the morning
after the gale, 'though it was blowing like blazes, I observed some little
gulls of Jacky's species, and they followed us half way across the Bay,
seeming to find shelter under the lee of our ship. Some alighted now
and then, and rested upon the water as if tired.' When one considers
that these birds must have been at sea all that night somewhere, it gives
one a great idea of their strength and endurance. My son's ship, though
a powerful ocean steamer, was for two whole hours battling head to sea
off the Eddystone that night, and for that time the lead gave no increase
of soundings, so that she could have made no headway during those two
hours ; while all the time her yards had the St. Elmo's fire at their ends,
looking as though a blue light was burning at each yard-arm, and this was
about all they could see. — Yours sincerely,
" ROBT. C. LESLIE."
75. The next letter, from a correspondent with whom I
have the most complete sympathy in some expressions of
his postscript which are yet, 1 consider, more for my own
private ear than for the public eye, describes one of the
more malignant phases of the plague-wind, which I forgot
to notice in my lecture : —
"BURNHAM, SOMERSET, February 1th, 1884.
" DEAR SIR, — I read with great interest your first lecture at Oxford l
on cloud and wind (very indifferently reported in the Times). You have
given a name to a wind I've known for years. You call it the plague —
I call it the devil-wind: e.g., on April 29th, 1882, morning warmer, then
rain storms from east ; afternoon, rain squalls ; wind, west by south, rough ;
barometer falling awfully; 4.30 P.M., tremendous wind. — April 30th, all the
leaves of the trees, all plants black and dead, as if a fiery blast had swept
over them. All the hedges on windward side black as black tea.
" Another devil-wind came towards the end of last summer. The next
day, all the leaves were falling sere and yellow, as if it were late autumn. —
I am, dear sir, yours faithfully,
"A. H. BIRKETT."
1 [A mistake for London.]
XXXIV. E
68 THE STORM-CLOUD
76. I remember both these blights well ; they were en-
tirely terrific; but only sudden maxima of the constant
morbific power of this wind; — which, if Mr. Birkett saw
my personal notices of, intercalated among the scientific
ones, he would find alluded to in terms quite as vigorously
damning as he could desire : and the actual effect of it
upon my thoughts and work has been precisely that which
would have resulted from the visible phantom of an evil
spirit, the absolute opponent of the Queen of the Air, —
Typhon against Athena, — in a sense of which I had neither
the experience nor the conception when I wrote the illus-
trations of the myth of Perseus in Modern Painters.1 Not
a word of all those explanations of Homer and Pindar
could have been written in weather like that of the last
twelve years ; and I am most thankful to have got them
written before the shadow came, and I could still see what
Homer and Pindar saw. I quote one passage only — Vol. v.
p. 1452 — for the sake of a similitude which reminds me
of one more thing I have to say here — and a bit of its
note — which I think is a precious little piece, not of word-
painting, but of simply told feeling — (that, if people knew
it, is my real power) : —
" On the Yorkshire and Derbyshire hills, when the rain-cloud is low
and much broken, and the steady west wind nils all space with its
strength,* the sun-gleams fly like golden vultures; they are flashes rather
than shinings; the dark spaces and the dazzling race and skim along the
acclivities, and dart and dip from crag to dell, sivallorv-like."
* " I have been often at great heights on the Alps in rough weather,
and have seen strong gusts of storm in the plains of the south. But, to
get full expression of the very heart and meaning of wind, there is no
place like a Yorkshire moor. I think Scottish breezes are thinner, very
bleak and piercing, but not substantial. If you lean on them they will
let you fall, but one may rest against a Yorkshire breeze as one would on
a quickset hedge. J shall not soon forget, — having had the good fortune
to meet a vigorous one on an April morning, between Hawes and Settle,
just on the flat under Wharnside, — the vague sense of wonder with which
I watched Ingleborough stand without rocking."
1 [See vol. v. part vii. ch. iv. (Vol. VII. pp. 181 seq.), where it will be seen
that Raskin's references are not to Homer and Pindar, but mainly to Hesiod.]
* [The reference is to the original edition : part vii. ch. iv. § 14 (Vol. VII.
pp. 186-187).]
LECTURE II 69
77. The dipping of the shadows here described of course
is caused only by that of the dingles they cross ; but I
have not in any of my books yet dwelt enough on the
difference of character between the dipping and the mount-
ing winds. Our wildest phase of the west wind here at
Coniston is "swallow-like" with a vengeance, coming down
on the lake in swirls which spurn the spray under them as
a fiery horse does the dust. On the other hand, the softly
ascending winds express themselves in the grace of their
cloud motion, as if set to the continuous music of a dis-
tant song.*
78. The reader will please note also that whenever, either
in Modern Painters or elsewhere, I speak of rate of flight
* Compare Wordsworth's
" Oh beauteous birds, metliinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune." l
And again —
"While the mists,
Flying and rainy vapours, call out shapes,
And phantoms from the crags and solid earth.
As fast as a musician scatters sounds
Out of an instrument." 2
And again —
" The Knight had ridden down from Wensley moor,
With the slow motion of a summer's cloud." *
1 [The lines are quoted also in Fors Clavigera, Letter 57, § 6 (Vol. XXVIII.
p. 406). They are, however, not Wordsworth's, but Coleridge's; see his "Lewti,
or the Circassian Love-Chauut " : —
"The river-swans have heard my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous birds ! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune !
O beauteous birds ! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon."
The piece was to have been included in Lyrical Ballads (1798), and a copy of the
book in the British Museum, which belonged to Southev, contains it. But it was
cancelled before publication ; for the poem, having already appeared in the Morning
Post (April 13, 1798), and being known to be Coleridge's, would have given a
clue to the authorship of Lyrical Ballads, which was published anonymously.]
J [Wordsworth : Excurtdon, Book iv. ; quoted also in Vol. XXV. p. 243.]
» [The fiwt two lines of Hart-Leap Well.]
70 THE STORM-CLOUD
in clouds, I am thinking of it as measured by the horizontal
distance overpast in given time, and not as apparent only,
owing to the nearness of the spectator. All low clouds
appear to move faster than high ones, the pace being sup-
posed equal in both : but when I speak of quick or slow
cloud, it is always with respect to a given altitude. In a
fine summer morning, a cloud will wait for you among the
pines, folded to and fro among their stems, with a branch
or two coming out here, and a spire or two there : you
walk through it, and look back to it. At another time on
the same spot, the fury of cloud-flood drifts past you like
the Rhine at Schaffhausen.
79. The space even of the doubled lecture does not
admit of my entering into any general statement of the
action of the plague-cloud in Switzerland and Italy; but I
must not omit the following notes of its aspect in the
high Alps.
"SALLENCHES, llth September, 1882.
" This morning, at half-past five, the Mont Blanc summit
was clear, and the greater part of the Aiguilles du Plan
and Midi clear dark — all, against pure cirri, lighted beneath
by sunrise; the sun of course not visible yet from the
valley.
" By seven o'clock, the plague-clouds had formed in
brown flakes, down to the base of the Aiguille de Bionassay,
entirely covering the snowy ranges ; the sun, as it rose to
us here, shone only for about ten minutes — gilding in its
old glory the range of the Dorons; — before one had time
to look from peak to peak of it, the plague-cloud formed
from the west, hid Mont Joli, and steadily choked the
valley with advancing streaks of dun-coloured mist. Now —
twenty minutes to nine — there is not one ray of sunshine
on the whole valley, or on its mountains, from the Forclaz
down to Cluse.
" These phenomena are only the sequel of a series of
still more strange and sad conditions of the air, which have
LECTURE II 71
continued among the Savoy Alps for the last eight days,
(themselves the sequel of others yet more general, pro-
longed, and harmful). But the weather was perfectly fine
at Dijon, and I doubt not at Chamouni, on the 1st of
this month. On the 2nd, in the evening, I saw, from the
Jura, heavy thunderclouds in the west ; on the 3rd, the
weather broke at Morez, in hot thunder-showers, with in-
tervals of scorching sun ; on the 4th, 5th, and 6th there
was nearly continuous rain at St. Cergues, the Alps being
totally invisible all the time. The sky cleared on the night
of the 6th, and on the 7th I saw from the top of the
Dole all the western plateaux of Jura quite clearly; but
the entire range of the Alps, from the Moleson to the
Saleve, and all beyond, — snow, crag, and hill-side, — were
wrapped and buried in one unbroken grey-brown winding-
sheet, of such cloud as I had never seen till that day touch
an Alpine summit.
" The wind, from the east, (so that it blew up over the
edge of the Dole cliff, and admitted of perfect shelter on
the slope to the west,) was bitter cold, and extremely
violent : the sun overhead, bright enough, and remained so
during the afternoon ; the plague-cloud reaching from the
Alps only about as far as the southern shore of the lake
of Geneva ; but we could not see the Saleve ; nor even the
north shore, farther than to Morges ! I reached the Col
de la Faucille at sunset, when, for a few minutes, the
Mont Blanc and Aiguille Verte showed themselves in dull
red light, but were buried again, before the sun was quite
down, in the rising deluge of cloud-poison. I saw no
farther than the Voirons and Brezon — and scarcely those,
during the electric heat of the 9th at Geneva ; and last
Saturday and Sunday have been mere whirls and drifts of
indecisive, but always sullen, storm. This morning I saw
the snows clear for the first time, having been, during
the whole past week, on steady watch for them.
" I have written that the clouds of the 7th were such
as I never before saw on the Alps. Often, during the past
72 THE STORM-CLOUD
ten years, I have seen them on my own hills, and in Italy
in 1874 ; but it has always chanced to be fine weather,
or common rain and cold, when I have been among the
snowy chains ; and now from the Dole for the first time
I saw the plague-cloud on them."
80. (Note 20; § 38, p. 40.) " Blasphemy."— If the
reader can refer to my papers on Fiction in the Nineteenth
Century,1 he will find this word carefully defined in its
Scriptural, and evermore necessary, meaning, — " Harmful
speaking" — not against God only, but against man, and
against all the good works and purposes of Nature. The
word is accurately opposed to " Euphemy," the right or well-
speaking of God and His world ; and the two modes of
speech are those which, going out of the mouth, sanctify or
defile the man.2
Going out of the mouth, that is to say, deliberately and
of purpose. A French postillion's " Sacr-r-re' " — loud, with
the low " Nom de Dieu " following between his teeth, is not
blasphemy, unless against his horse ; — but Mr. Thackeray's
close of his Waterloo chapter in Vanity Fair, " And all
the night long Amelia was praying for George, who was
lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart," is
blasphemy of the most fatal and subtle kind.8
And the universal instinct of blasphemy in the modern
vulgar scientific mind is above all manifested in its love of
what is ugly, and natural enthralment by the abominable ;
— so that it is ten to one if, in the description of a new
bird, you learn much more of it than the enumerated
species of vermin that stick to its feathers ; and in the
natural history museum of Oxford, humanity has been
1 [fiction, Fair and Foul, §§ 93 seq. (below, pp. 362-367). See also Fora
Clavigem, Letter 20, §§ 7, 8 (Vol. XXVII. p. 338) ; and Bible of Amiens, iv. § 25
(Vol. XXXIII. p. 140).]
2 [See Matthew xv. 11.]
3 [Ch. xxxii. Rusk in quotes from memory, the actual words being, "The dark-
ness came down over the field and city, and Amelia . . ." For another reference
to this passage, see Vol. V. p. 213 n.\
LECTURE II 73
hitherto taught, not by portraits of great men, but by the
skulls of cretins.1
81. But the deliberate blasphemy of science, the assertion
of its own virtue and dignity against the always implied,
and often asserted, vileness of all men and — Gods, — hereto-
fore, is the most wonderful phenomenon, so far as I can
read or perceive, that hitherto has arisen in the always
marvellous course of the world's mental history.
Take, for brief general type, the following 92nd para-
graph of the Forms of Water: —
" But while we thus acknowledge our limits, there is also reason for
wonder at the extent to which Science has mastered the system of nature.
From age to age and from generation to generation, fact has been added
to fact and law to law, the true method and order of the Universe being
thereby more and more revealed. In doing this, Science has encountered
and overthrown various forms of superstition and deceit, of credulity and
imposture. But the world continually produces weak persons and wicked
persons, and as long as they continue to exist side by side, as they do in
this our day, very debasing beliefs will also continue to infest the world."
The debasing beliefs meant being simply those of
Homer, David, and St. John * — as against a modern French
gamin's. And what the results of the intended education
of English gamins of every degree in that new higher
theology will be, England is I suppose by this time begin-
ning to discern.
82. In the last Fors'f which I have written, on educa-
tion of a safer kind, still possible, one practical point is
insisted on chiefly, — that learning by heart, and repetition
with perfect accent and cultivated voice, should be made
quite principal branches of school discipline up to the time
of going to the university.2
* With all who died in Faith, not having received the Promises,3 nor
— according to your modern teachers — ever to receive.
•J- Hence to the end the text is that read in termination of the lecture
on its second delivery, only with an added word or two of comment on
Proverbs xvii.
1 [Compare Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 79 (below, p. 349).]
2 [Letter 94: see Vol. XXIX. p. 489.]
8 [Hebrews xi. 13.]
74 THE STORM-CLOUD
And of writings to be learned by heart, among other
passages of indisputable philosophy and perfect poetry,
I include certain chapters of the — now for the most part
forgotten — wisdom of Solomon ; and of these, there is one
selected portion which I should recommend not only school-
boys and girls, but persons of every age, if they don't know
it, to learn forthwith, as the shortest summary of Solomon's
wisdom; — namely, the seventeenth chapter of Proverbs,
which being only twenty-eight verses long, may be fastened
in the dullest memory at the rate of a verse a day in the
shortest month of the year. Out of the twenty-eight
verses, I will read you seven, for example of their tenor, —
the last of the seven I will with your good leave dwell
somewhat upon. You have heard the verses often before,
but probably without remembering that they are all in this
concentrated chapter.
1. Verse 1. — Better is a dry morsel, and quietness
therewith, than a house full of good eating, with
strife.
(Remember, in reading this verse, that though
England has chosen the strife, and set every man's
hand against his neighbour, her house is not yet so
full of good eating as she expected, even though
she gets half of her victuals from America.)
2. Verse 3. — The fining pot is for silver, the furnace
for gold, but the Lord tries the heart.1
(Notice the increasing strength of trial for the
more precious thing: only the melting-pot for the
silver — the fierce furnace for the gold — but the
Fire of the Lord for the heart.)
3. Verse 4. — A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips.
(That means, for you, that, intending to live
by usury and swindling, you read Mr. Adam
Smith and Mr. Stuart Mill, and other such
political economists.)
1 [Quoted more exactly in Vol. XXXIII. p. 194.]
LECTURE II 75
4. Verse 5. — Whoso moeketh the poor, reproacheth his
Maker.
(Moeketh, — by saying that his poverty is his
fault, no less than his misfortune, — England's
favourite theory now-a-days.)
5. Verse 12. — Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a
man, rather than a fool in his folly.
(Carlyle is often now accused of false scorn
in his calling the passengers over London Bridge,
" mostly fools," l — on the ground that men are only
to be justly held foolish if their intellect is under,
as only wise when it is above, the average. But
the reader will please observe that the essential
function of modern education is to develop what
capacity of mistake a man has. Leave him at his
forge and plough, — and those tutors teach him his
true value, indulge him in no error, and provoke
him to no vice. But take him up to London, —
give him her papers to read, and her talk to hear,
— and it is fifty to one you send him presently on
a fool's errand over London Bridge.)
6. Now listen, for this verse is the question you have
mainly to ask yourselves about your beautiful all-
over-England system of competitive examination : —
Verse 16. Wherefore is there a price in the hand of
a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it ?
(You know perfectly well it isn't the wisdom
you want, but the " station in life," z — and the
money !)
7. Lastly, Verse 7. — Wisdom is before him that hath
understanding, but the eyes of a fool are in the
ends of the earth.
" And in the beginnings of it " ! Solomon would
have written, had he lived in our day ; but we will
1 [For the passage in question (from Latter-day Pamphlets), see Vol. XII. p. 342.]
2 [For Ruskin's condemnation of desire for "station in life," see Sesame and
Lilies, §S 2, 135 ; and For* Clavigera, Letter 30 (Vol. XVII. pp. 54, 181 ; Vol. XXVII.
p. 548).]
76 THE STORM-CLOUD
be content with the ends at present. No scientific
people, as I told you at first, have taken any notice
of the more or less temporary phenomena of which
I have to-night given you register. But, from the
constant arrangements of the universe, the same
respecting which the thinkers of former time came
to the conclusion that they were essentially good,
and to end in good, the modern speculator arrives
at the quite opposite and extremely uncomfortable
conclusion that they are essentially evil, and to end
— in nothing.
83. And I have here a volume,* before quoted,1 by a
very foolish and very lugubrious author, who in his con-
cluding chapter gives us, — founded, you will observe, on a
series of "ifs," — the latest scientific views concerning the
order of creation. "We have spoken already about a
medium pervading space" — this is the Scientific God, you
observe, differing from the unscientific one, in that the
purest in heart cannot see2 — nor the softest in heart feel —
this spacious Deity — a Medium, pervading space —
"the office of which" (italics all mine) "appears to be to degrade and ulti-
mately extinguish, all differential motion. It has been well pointed out by
Thomson, that, looked at in this light, the universe is a system that had
a beginning and must have an end, for a process of degradation cannot
be eternal. If we could view the Universe as a candle not lit, then it is
perhaps conceivable to regard it as having been always in existence ; but if
we regard it rather as a candle that has been lit, we become absolutely
certain that it cannot have been burning from eternity, and that a time
will come when it will cease to burn. We are led to look to a beginning
in which the particles of matter were in a diffuse chaotic state, but en-
dowed with the power of gravitation ; and we are led to look to an end in
which the whole Universe will be one equally heated inert mass, and from
which everything like life, or motion, or beauty, nill have utterly gone away."
Do you wish me to congratulate you on this extremely
cheerful result of telescopic and microscopic observation, and
* The Conservation of Energy. King and Co., 1873.
1 [Above, p. 61. The passage here cited is in §§ 209, 210 (pp. 152, 153) of
Balfour Stewart's book.]
2 [Matthew v. 8.]
LECTURE II 77
so at once close my lecture ? or may I venture yet to tres-
pass on your 'time by stating to you any of the more com-
fortable views held by persons who did not regard the
universe in what my author humorously calls " this light " ?
84. In the peculiarly characteristic notice with which
the Daily News honoured my last week's lecture, that
courteous journal charged me, in the metaphorical term
now classical on Exchange, with "hedging," to conceal
my own opinions.1 The charge was not prudently chosen,
since, of all men now obtaining any portion of popular
regard, I am pretty well known to be precisely the one
who cares least either for hedge or ditch, when he chooses
to go across country. It is certainly true that I have
not the least mind to pin my heart on my sleeve, for the
daily daw, or nightly owl, to peck at ; 2 but the essential
reason for my not telling you my own opinions on this
matter is — that I do not consider them of material conse-
quence to you.
It might possibly be of some advantage for you to know
what, were he now living, Orpheus would have thought,
or ^schylus, or a Daniel come to judgment,3 or John the
Baptist, or John the Son of Thunder ; but what either you,
or I, or any other Jack or Tom of us all, think, — even if
we knew what to think, — is of extremely small moment
either to the Gods, the clouds, or ourselves.
85. Of myself, however, if you care to hear it, I will
tell you thus much : that had the weather when I was
1 [The article referred to (Daily News, February 6, 1884) said: "If Mr.
Raskin's theories are not invariably such as commend themselves to sober reason,
at least he always announces them in very picturesque language. We may not
all agree with him that storm-clouds are depraved characters, and have been in-
fected by the various vices of the age. It seems, on the whole, a more plausible
hypothesis that Mr. Kuskin, as he gets on in years, is more sensitive to disagree-
able weather. . . . Mr. Kuskin seems to think that the most plausible theory
of the wind regards it as composed of dead men's souls. By a skilful 'hedge/
Mr. Ruskin did not so much avow that the wind was a punishment of our iniquities,
as say that people would have thought so of old. This is quite true ; everything
disagreeable was looked on as a divine visitation by the mediaeval chroniclers.
Probably Mr. Ruskin would like to be able to believe this about the plague-wind.
But his reason appears to be too strong for his tastes."]
2 [Othello, Act i. sc. 1.]
3 [Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1.]
78 THE STORM-CLOUD
young been such as it is now, no book such as Modern
Painters ever would or could have been written ; for every
argument, and every sentiment in that book, was founded
on the personal experience of the beauty and blessing of
nature, all spring and summer long; and on the then
demonstrable fact that over a great portion of the world's
surface the air and the earth were fitted to the education of
the spirit of man as closely as a schoolboy's primer is to his
labour, and as gloriously as a lover's mistress is to his eyes.
That harmony is now broken, and broken the world
round : fragments, indeed, of what existed still exist, and
hours of what is past still return ; but month by month
the darkness gains upon the day, and the ashes of the
Antipodes glare through the night.*
* Written under the impression that the lurid and prolonged sunsets
of last autumn had been proved to be connected with the flight of
volcanic ashes.1 This has been since, I hear, disproved again. Whatever
their cause, those sunsets were, in the sense in which I myself use the
word, altogether " unnatural " and terrific : but they have no connection
with the far more fearful, because protracted and increasing, power of the
Plague-wind. The letter from White's History of Selborne, quoted by the
Rev. W. R. Andrews in his letter to the Times, (dated January 8th) seems
to describe aspects of the sky like these of 1883, just a hundred years
before, in 1783: and also some of the circumstances noted, especially the
variation of the wind to all quarters without alteration in the air, corre-
spond with the character of the plague-wind; but the fog of 1783 made
the sun dark, with iron-coloured rays — not pale, with blanching rays.
I subjoin Mr. Andrews' letter, extremely valuable in its collation of the
records of simultaneous volcanic phenomena ; praying the reader also to
observe the instantaneous acknowledgment, by the true "Naturalist/' of
horror in the violation of beneficent natural law.
"THE RECENT SUNSETS AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
"SiR, — It may, perhaps, be interesting at the present time, when so
much attention has been given to the late brilliant sunsets and sunrises,
to be reminded that almost identically the same appearances were observed
just a hundred years ago.
"Gilbert White writes in the year 1783, in his 109th letter, published
in his Natural History of Selborne : —
'"The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous
1 [The sunsets of the autumn of 1883 were the subject of a long paper by Pro-
fessor Norman Lockyer, F.R.S., in the Times of December 8 (see also a leading
article in the same issue), in which they were connected with volcanic eruptions
in the Isle of Krakatoa. The theory was adversely criticised at a meeting of the
Astronomical Society : sec the Times of December 17.]
LECTURE II 79
86. What consolation, or what courage, through plague,
danger, or darkness, you can find in the conviction that
you are nothing more than brute beasts driven by brute
forces, your other tutors can tell you — not I : but this I
can tell you — and with the authority of all the masters of
thought since time was time, — that, while by no manner
of vivisection you can learn what a Beast is, by only
one, and full of horrible phenomena ; for besides the alarming meteors
and tremendous thunderstorms that affrighted and distressed the different
counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog that prevailed
for many weeks in this island and in every part of Europe, and even
beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything
known within the memory of man. By my journal I find that I had
noticed this strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive,
during which period the wind varied to every quarter without making
any alteration in the air. The sun at noon looked as black as a clouded
moon, and shed a ferruginous light on the ground anil floors of rooms,
but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. The
country people began to look with a superstitious awe at the red lowering
aspect of the sun ; and, indeed, there was reason for the most enlightened
person to be apprehensive, for all the while Calabria and part of the
Isle of Sicily were torn and convulsed with earthquakes, and about that
juncture a volcano sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway.'
" Other writers also mention volcanic disturbances in this same year,
1783. We are told by Lyell and Geikie, that there were great volcanic
eruptions in and near Iceland. A submarine volcano burst forth in the
sea, thirty miles south-west of Iceland, which ejected so much pumice
that the ocean was covered with this substance, to the distance of 150
miles, and ships were considerably impeded in their course; and a new
island was formed, from which fire and smoke and pumice were emitted.
" Besides this submarine eruption, the volcano Skaptar-Jokull, on the
mainland, on June llth, 1783, threw out a torrent of lava, so immense as
to surpass in magnitude the bulk of Mont Blanc, and ejected so vast an
amount of fine dust, that the atmosphere over Iceland continued loaded
with it for months afterwards. It fell in such quantities over parts of
Caithness — a distance of 600 miles — as to destroy the crops, and that year
is still spoken of by the inhabitants as the year of ' the ashie/
" These particulars are gathered from the text-books of Lyell and
Geikie.
" I am not aware whether the coincidence in time of the Icelandic
eruptions, and of the peculiar appearance of the sun described by Gilbert
White, has yet been noticed ; but this coincidence may vfery well be taken
as some little evidence towards explaining the connexion between the
recent beautiful sunsets and the tremendous volcanic explosion of the Isle
of Krakatoa in August last.
"W. R. ANDREWS, F.G.S.
"TEFFONT EWYA» RKCTORY,
"SALISBURY, January 8th"
80 THE STORM-CLOUD
looking into your own hearts you may know what a Man
is, — and know that his only true happiness is to live in
Hope of something to be won by him, in Reverence of
something to be worshipped by him, and in Love of some-
thing to be cherished by him,1 and cherished — for ever.
87. Having these instincts, his only rational conclusion
is that the objects which can fulfil them may be by his
effort gained, and by his faith discerned ; and his only
earthly wisdom is to accept the united testimony of the
men who have sought these things in the way they were
commanded. Of whom no single one has ever said that
his obedience or his faith had been vain, or found himself
cast out from the choir of the living souls, whether here.
or departed, for whom the song was written : —
" God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine
upon us ;
That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among
all nations.
Oh let the nations rejoice and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge
the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth.
Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own
God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." 2
1 [Compare Wordsworth's line, so often quoted by K us kin — see, e.g., Art of
England, § 38 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 292)—" We live by admiration, hope, and love."]
a [Psalm Ixvii.]
II
ON THE OLD ROAD
(1871-1888)
ON THE OLD ROAD
A COLLECTION
OF
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ARTICLES
1871-1888
BY JOHN RUSKIN
GEORGE ALLEN,
156, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON
1908.
xxxtv.
'A "J
[Bibliographical Note. — The title of the following collection is that which
was given by Ruskin to volumes first published in 1885, and re-issued in a
somewhat different form in 1899. The following pages include such contents
of those volumes as have not already been printed in the present edition
of the Works. In this note, the usual particulars of On the Old Road, in its
original forms, are first given ; and then a synopsis is added, showing the
original arrangement of the Miscellanies and the places in this edition
where they are severally printed.
FORMER EDITIONS OF "ON THE OLD ROAD"
First Edition (1885). — In this edition, the book was divided into two
volumes, dealing respectively with (1) Art and (2) other topics ; but
Volume I., though paged and sectioned consecutively throughout, was
divided into two Parts of about equal size, the second Part being provided
with a separate title-page, and usually being bound up separately.
VOLUME I. PART I
The title-page of this (being that applicable to the whole volume) is as
follows : —
On the Old Road. | A Collection | of | Miscellaneous Essays, Pamphlets,
etc., etc., Published 1834-1885 | By | John Ruskin, LL.D., D.C.L., |
Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Honorary Fellow of | Corpus
Christi College, Oxford | Volume I. — Art | [Rose] \ George Allen, |
Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent, | 1885. | [All rights reserved.]
Octavo, pp. xii. + 400. Half-title, pp. i.-ii. ; Title-page (with imprint at
foot of the reverse — "Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London
and Aylesbury"), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents (of both Parts), pp. v.-vii. ; Editor's
Note, p. ix. ; Contents of Part I., p. xi. ; Miscellanies, pp. 1 -400 (for
details of these, see the synopsis below, p. 88).
The whole book was issued in May 1886 (although dated 1885), in
mottled-grey paper boards, with white paper label which reads : " Ruskin |
On the Old Road. | Vol. I. | Part I. (Part II.)." 1000 copies. 30s. the two
(or in reality three) volumes. The price was reduced to 18s. in July 1900.
This edition is still current.
Fifty-five copies were printed on large paper (quarto), price 60s. Also
one example (in Mr. Wedderburn's collection) on hand-made paper.
The collection was edited by Mr. Wedderburn. The following is the
" Editor's Note " :—
" The present volumes need little preface. Upon the publication in 1880 of
Arrowt of the. Chace, the Editor of that book received many letters requesting
the edition, there suggested, of a volume or volumes bearing the same relation
to Mr. Ruskin's uncollected articles and essays which that work did to his till
then scattered letters to the public press. To that request, widely made, these
85
86 ON THE OLD ROAD
volumes are the reply, and the Editor has only to set before the reader the
arrangement and contents of the work.
"The book has been edited without reference to Mr. Ruskin, who is responsible
for nothing but his sanction to its issue and the title it bears. The articles have
been reprinted without any change of text, and with the addition of but very few
editorial notes. In the case of Arrmcs of the Chace numerous notes were necessary,
but the present volumes are of a different character, and most of the allusions
in them stand no more in need of explanation now than when the articles contain-
ing them were originally published.
"The first volume, which for the sake of lightness in the hand is published in
two parts,1 consists mainly of articles on Art; the second, of those on other
subjects. In view of this each volume has been separately indexed ; the first
containing an index dealing almost exclusively with Art ; the second, on the other
hand, one in which that subject finds scarcely any mention. This plan may, it
is hoped, be found convenient to those readers who desire to study either volume
without reference to the other.
" As regards the contents of the book, it contains, with few exceptions, a com-
plete collection of all Mr. Ruskin's minor writings. The papers on the ' Poetry
of Architecture,' published (1837-38) in Loudon's Architectural Magazine, and
some contributions (1867-70) to the Geological Magazine, are omitted ; the
former as fitted to form of themselves a separate volume ;2 the latter as possibly
finding a place in the presently issuing Deucalion.* The three papers some time
since reprinted at the end of A Joy for Ever are also not included ; but with
these exceptions, and those of one or two brief contributions to very recent works,4
the collection is, it is believed, complete, and it only remains to acknowledge the
ready grace with which the Editor of the Nineteenth Century and others in whose
publications the articles first appeared have consented to their reproduction
here.— ED.
"December, 1885."
VOLUME I. PART II
The title-page of this is the same as shown above, except for the addition
of " Part II. " below " Volume I.— Art."
Octavo, pp. vi. + 412 (401-812). Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page, p. iii. ;
Contents of Part II., pp. v.-vi. A briefer list of the Contents, p. 401. For
the Miscellanies, see the synopsis below, p. 88. Index, pp. 743-812. The
imprint is repeated at the foot of the last page.
VOLUME II
The title-page is the same as in Volume I., except for the words,
" Volume II. j Literature, Economy, Theology, etc."
Octavo, pp. vi. +435. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page (with imprint on the
reverse as before), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents, p. v. For the Miscellanies, see
the synopsis below, p. 89. Index, pp. 393-435. The imprint is repeated
at the foot of the last page.
Second Edition (1899). — This edition was rearranged ; Volume I. Part II.
becoming Volume II. This Vol. II. was separately paged and sectioned,
and it and Vol. I. had each a separate Index. The text was unchanged,
except for the correction of a few misprints (see below, p. 90).
1 In the second edition these words were altered to: "The first two volumes
consist . . . the second ..." "... an index."
2 Issued separately as a volume, in 1893. See now Vol. I.
3 They were not so included ; but see now Vol. XXVI.
4 Namely, the Preface to the illustrations of The Shepherd' t Tower (Vol. XXIV.),
the Preface to Chesneau's English School of Painting (below, p. 437), the Preface to
Collingwood's Limettone Alps of Savoy (Vol. XXVI.), the Preface to The Story of Ida
(Vol. XXXII.).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 87
VOLUME I
The title-page of the first volume in this edition is : —
On the Old Road | A Collection of | Miscellaneous Essays and Articles
| On Art and Literature | Published 1834-1885 | By | John Ruskin,
LL.D., D.C.L. | Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Honorary
Fellow of Corpus Christi" College, Oxford | Volume I | Art | [Part I] |
George Allen, Suimyside, Orpington | and | 156, Charing Cross Road,
London | 1899 | {All rights reserved],
Crown 8vo, pp. x. + 448. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page (with imprint at
foot of the reverse — " Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. | At the
Ballantyne Press "), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents, p. v. ; Editor's Note, pp. vii.-viii.
(for alterations in it, see above, p. 86) ; short list of Contents of Part I.,
p. ix. Miscellanies, pp. 1-407-448. The imprint is repeated on the last
page.
Issued (vols. i. and ii., December 28, 1899; vol. iii., January 12, 1900)
in green cloth boards, uniform with other volumes in the "Small Edition"
of Ruskin' s books, lettered on the back, " Ruskin | On the | Old Road |
Vol. I." 2000 copies. 5s. each volume (reduced to 4s. in January 1904,
and to 3s. 6d. in July 1907).
VOLUME II
The title-page is the same as in Vol. I., except for the substitution of
" [Part II.]." The contents are the same as in the Vol. I. Part II. of the
First Edition ; but the sections are now §§ 1-305, instead of §§ 292-596 ;
and there is a separate index.
Crown 8vo, pp. vi. + 422. Half-title, p. i. ; title-page (with imprint as
before), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents, pp. v.-vi. ; shorter list of them, p. vii.
Miscellanies, pp. 1-374. Chronological List of Contents of Vols. I. and II.,
pp. 375-382 ; Index, pp. 383-422. The imprint is repeated at foot of the
last page.
VOLUME III
The title-page is again the same, except for the substitution of " Volume
III. | Literature, Economy, | Theology, etc."
Crown 8vo, pp. vi. + 452. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page (with imprint as
before), pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents, p. v. Miscellanies, pp. 1-402. Chrono-
logical List of Contents of Vol. III., pp. 401-404. Index, pp. 405-452.
The imprint is repeated at the foot of the last page.
Pocket Edition (1905). — This is a reprint from electrotype plates of the
Second Edition. The form and binding are the same as in other volumes
of the Pocket Edition (see Vol. XV. p. 6).
Volume I. was issued in September 1905 ; Volume II. in October ;
Volume III. in November. Of each volume 3000 copies ; price 2s. 6d.
The title-page is, " On the Old Road | Vol. I.— Art | By | John Ruskin |
London: George Allen." On the reverse, "September 1905 \ All rights
reserved." " Vol. II.— Art " (on the reverse, " October," etc.). " Vol. III.—
Literature" ("November," etc.).
88
ON THE OLD ROAD
CONTENTS OF "ON THE OLD ROAD" (1885 AND 1899)
The following synopsis shows the Contents of the book, and the places
in the present edition of the Works where they are severally printed :—
VOLUME I
EDITOR'S NOTE
PART I
INTRODUCTORY.
MY FIHST EDITOR.
1878
ART.
I. HISTORY AND CRITICISM.
Lord Lindsay's Chrittian Art. 1847
Eastlake's History of Oil Painting.
1848
Samuel Prout. 1849
Sir Joshua and Holbein.
1860
II. PRB-RAPHABLITISM.
Its Principles, and Turner. 1851
Its Three Colours. 1878
1836
PAGE
ix
21
133
206
221
239
310
III. ARCHITECTURE.
The Opening of the Crystal Palace.
1854 349
The Study of Architecture in our Schools.
1865 371
1899 Present Edition
PAGE
vii Above, p. 85
3 Below, p. 93
21 Vol. XII. p. 169
136
210
225
p. 251
p. 305
Vol. XIX. p. 3
INDEX
243 Vol. XII. p. 339
314 Below, p. 147
355 Vol. XII. p. 417
376 Vol. XIX. p. 19
409 General Index
VOLUME I. PART II. (1885). VOLUME II. (1899)
5 Vol. XVI. p. 177
IV. INAUGURAL ADDRESS, CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL
OF ART. 1858 405
V. THE CESTUS OF AGLAIA. 1865-1866.
Prefatory
Chapter i. .
. 439
. 452
. 467 n. .
41 Vol. XIX. p. 49
54 p. 59
70 n. p 72
. 468
71 p. 82
iv. .
T. .
vi. .
vii. .
viii. .
ix. .
. 483
. 498
. 513 n. .
. 514
. 523
. 534
86 p. 95
101 p. 107
116 n. p. 120
117 p. 135
126 p. 141
138 p. 150
I. PICTURE GALLERIES.
APPENDICES
Parliamentary Evidence : —
National Gallery Site Commission. 1857 549
Select Committee on Public Institutions.
1860 574
The Royal Academy Commission. 1863 602
Letters on a Museum or Picture Gallery.
1880 625
153 Vol. XIII. p. 539
183 Vol. XVI. p. 472
215 Vol. XIV. p. 476
243 Below, p. 247
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
89
II. MINOR WRITINGS UPON ART
1885
1899
Present Edition
PAGE
PAGE
The Cavalli Monuments, Verona. 1872. 643
. 265
Vol. XXIV. p. 127
Verona and its Rivers. 1870 . . 654
. 279
Vol. XIX. p. 429
Catalogue. 1870 665
. 292
p. 449
Christian Art and Symbolism. 1872 . 674
. 303
Vol. XXII. p. 109
Art Schools of Mediaeval Christendom.
1876 .677
. 307
Below, p. 129
The Extension of Railways. 1876 . 682
. 312
p. 137
The Study of Beauty. 1883 . . 689
. 321
p. 429
III. NOTES ON NATURAL SCIENCE
The Colour of the Rhine. 1834 . . 699
. 333
Vol. I. p. 191
The Strata of Mont Blanc. 1834 . . 701
. 335
p. 194
The Induration of Sandstone. 1836 . 703
. 337
p. 197
The Temperature of Spring and River
Water. 1836 707
. 342
p. 201
Meteorology. 1839 . . . .712
. 348
p. 206
Tree Twigs. 1861 717
. 354
Vol. VII. p. 467
Stratified Alps of Savoy. 1863 . . 721
. 359
Vol. XXVI. p. 3
Intellectual Conception and Animated
Life. 1871 728
. 367
Below, p. 107
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF CONTENTS OF VOLS.
I. AND II 737
. 3751
INDEX 746
. 383
General Index
VOLUME II (1885). VOLUME
III (1899)
I. LITERATURE.
Fiction— Fair and Foul. 1880-1881 . 3
3
Below, p. 265
Fairy Stories. 1868 .... 167
. 170
Vol. XIX. p. 233
n. ECONOMY.
Home, and its Economies. 1873 . . 179
. 183
VoL XVII. p. 556
Usury. A Reply and a Rejoinder.
1880 202
. 206
Below, p. 401
Usury. A Preface. 1885 ... 239
. 245
Below, p. 443
III. THEOLOGY.
Notes on the Construction of Sheep-
folds. 1851 249
. 255
Vol. XII. p. 517
The Lord's Prayer and the Church.
1879-1881. (Letters and Epilogue.) . 302
. 310
Below, p. 191
The Nature and Authority of Miracle.
1873 353
. 363
Below, p. 115
IV. AN OXFORD LECTURE. 1878 . . 369
. 379
Vol. XXII. p. 529
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF CONTENTS OF VOL.
Ill —
. 4031
INDEX —
. 407
General Index
Of the Miscellanies thus enumerated, it will be seen that twelve are
included in the present volume. For the two other pieces here included,
and for further details respecting the twelve, see the particular Biblio-
graphical Notes prefixed to each piece.]
1 The Chronological Lists are not here repeated, as they will be embodied in the
General Bibliographical List at the end of the edition.
90 ON THE OLD ROAD
Variee Lectiones. — There are a few variations in the text between the
two editions of On the Old Road; and in the present edition, a few mis-
prints, which escaped notice in On the Old Road, have been corrected.
For misprints which have hitherto appeared in "My First Editor," see
below, p. 92.
In " Lord Lindsay's Christian Art," at the end of § 8 (as now sectioned,
Vol. XII. p. 178), " Progression by Antagonism " was in ed. 1 misprinted
"Progression of Antagonism." The present § 63 began in ed. 1 at "A
noble passage this," instead of (in ed, 2) "None of Orcagna's pupils"
(Vol. XII. p. 233).
In "Eastlake's History of Oil-Painting," in § 37 (as now sectioned,
Vol. XII. p. 300), "mena" in the quotation from Dante was misprinted
"meuo" in ed. 1.
In " Pre-Raphaelitism," ed. 1 gave a note at the end of § 50 (as now
sectioned, Vol. XII. p. 383), "Vide Modern Painters, Part II. Sect III.
Chap. iv. § 14." The reference was corrected to § 13 in ed. 2. In this
edition, it is incorporated in an earlier note (p. 382). For other variations,
see the Bibliographical Note (ibid., p. 338).
For a correction in "The Three Colours," see below, p. 146.
In "The Crystal Palace," § 1 (as now sectioned, Vol. XII. p. 417),
line 3, "Vevay" was misprinted "Veway" in ed. 1. See also the Biblio-
graphical Note (ibid., p. 416).
In "The Study of Architecture," § 7 (as now sectioned, Vol. XIX.
p. 26), line 7, "or" was misprinted "on" in ed. 1 ; and in § 11, line 16
(ibid., p. 31), "granite" was misprinted "granite" in ed. 1. See also the
Bibliographical Note (ibid., p. 18).
In The Cesttu of Aglaia, at the beginning, the reference to the lines of
Homer was not given in ed. 1 ; in § 11 (as now sectioned, Vol. XIX.
p. 63), line 10, " Titian " was misprinted " Titan " in ed. 1 ; in the note
to ch. iii. (ibid., p. 82), ed. 1 had "This chapter was read," ed. 2 "A
small portion of this . . ." ; § 61 (ibid., p. 109), ed. 1 gave the reference
to Proverbs as "xix. " instead of "xx."
For a misprint in ed. 1 at the beginning of "A Museum or Picture
Gallery," see below, p. 246.
For misprints, etc., in "The Cavalli Monuments," see Vol. XXIV.
p. 126.
In "The Science of Meteorology," § 57 (now Vol. I. § 2, line 6,
p. 208), ed. 1 misprinted "science" for "silence."
For "varise" in Fiction, Fair and Foul, see below, p. 264.
In "Fairy Stories," § 130 (now Vol. XIX. p. 238, § 7, line 3), ed. 1
misprinted "striking" for "sterling."
For "varise" in "The Lord's Prayer and the Church," see below,
p. 188.]
1
INTRODUCTORY
MY FIRST EDITOR
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCE
(I878)
[Bibliographical Note. — This paper was written as a preface to a series of
"Notes and Reminiscences" from the pen of the late Mr. W. H. Harrison,
commenced in the Dublin University Magazine of May 1878.
William Henry Harrison's " Notes and Reminiscences " appeared in
the numbers of the Magazine for May to December (N.S., vol. i. pp. 537-
547, 698-712; vol. ii. pp. 56-67, 221-2:34, 309-323, 433-451, 613-618,
705-736). They contain occasional mention of Ruskin, and include (p. 223)
one of his poems — namely, " Christ Church, Oxford " — without the second
stanza in the text, which, however, is added in a footnote as having been
written "at a later date": see Vol. II. p. 25 n.
Ruskin's Preface was separately printed in that magazine in the pre-
ceding month (N.S., vol. i. pp. 385-391), but owing to Ruskin's illness
at the time, he was unable to see it through the press.
The paper was reprinted in On the Old Road, §§ 1-15 ; 1885, vol. i.
pp. 3-18; and again in the second edition of that work, 1899, vol. i.
pp. 3-18.
In On the Old Road, in § 3, line 45, " those " was misprinted " their " ;
in § 4, line 4, " discovered " was not italicised (as it is in Ruskin's copy) ;
in § 10, third line from the end, "passage" was misprinted "powers;"
in § 13 (line 3 of p. 102) "Tobias" has hitherto been "Tobit." These
corrections, and some of punctuation, are now made for the first time.]
1st February, 1878.
1. IN seven days more I shall be fifty-nine; — which (practi-
cally) is all the same as sixty ; but, being asked by the
wife of my dear old friend, W. H. Harrison,1 to say a few
words of our old relations together, I find myself, in spite
of all these years, a boy again, — partly in the mere thought
of, and renewed sympathy with, the cheerful heart of my
old literary master, and partly in instinctive terror lest, wher-
ever he is in celestial circles, he should catch me writing
bad grammar, or putting wrong stops, and should set the
table turning, or the like. For he was inexorable in such
matters, and many a sentence in Modern Painters, which
I had thought quite beautifully turned out after a forenoon's
work on it, had to be turned outside-in, after all, and cut
into the smallest pieces and sewn up again, because he had
found out there wasn't a nominative in it, or a genitive,
or a conjunction, or something else indispensable to a sen-
tence's decent existence and position in life. Not a book
of mine, for good thirty years, but went, eveiy word of it,
under his careful eyes twice over — often also the last revises
left to his tender mercy altogether on condition he wouldn't
bother me any more.
2. " For good thirty years " : that is to say, from my
first verse- writing in Friendsliip's Offering at fifteen,2 to
1 [For references to W. H. Harrison, see the Introduction, pp. xxvii.-xxviii.]
a [Friendship* Offering of 1835 included two poems, signed " J. R.," and entitled
" Saltzburg " and " Fragments from a Metrical Journal ; Andernacht and St. Goar " :
see Vol. II. pp. 353, 359.]
93
94 ON THE OLD ROAD
my last orthodox and conservative compositions at forty-
five.1 But when 1 began to utter radical sentiments, and
say things derogatory to the clergy, my old friend got
quite restive — absolutely refused sometimes to pass even my
most grammatical and punctuated paragraphs, if their con-
tents savoured of heresy or revolution ; and at last I was
obliged to print all my philanthropy and political economy
on the sly.
3. The heaven of the literary world through which Mr.
Harrison moved in a widely cometary fashion, circling now
round one luminary and now submitting to the attraction
of another, not without a serenely erubescent lustre of his
own, differed toto coelo from the celestial state of author-
ship by whose courses we have now the felicity of being
dazzled and directed. Then, the publications of the months
being very nearly concluded in the modest browns of Black-
wood and Fraser, and the majesty of the quarterlies being
above the range of the properly so-called "public" mind,
the simple family circle looked forward with chief compla-
cency to their New Year's gift of the Annual ; — a delicately
printed, lustrously bound, and elaborately illustrated small
octavo volume, representing, after its manner, the poetical and
artistic inspiration of the age. It is not a little wonderful to
me, looking back to those pleasant years and their bestow-
ings, to measure the difficultly imaginable distance between
the periodical literature of that day and ours. In a few
words, it may be summed by saying that the ancient
Annual was written by meekly-minded persons, who felt
that they knew nothing about anything, and did not want
to know more. Faith in the usually accepted principles of
propriety, and confidence in the Funds, the Queen, the
English Church, the British Army, and the perennial con-
tinuance of England, of her Annuals, and of the creation in
general, were necessary then for the eligibility, and impor-
tant elements in the success, of the winter-blowing author.
1 [And later, for Harrison revised the Lectures on Art (1870): see Vol. XX.
p. xlviii.]
MY FIRST EDITOR 95
Whereas I suppose that the popularity of our present can-
didates for praise, at the successive changes of the moon,
may be considered as almost proportionate to their confi-
dence in the abstract principles of dissolution, the immediate
necessity of change, and the inconvenience, no less than
the iniquity, of attributing any authority to the Church,
the Queen, the Almighty, or anything else but the British
Press. Such constitutional differences in the tone of the
literary contents imply still greater contrasts in the lives of
the editors of these several periodicals. It was enough for
the editor of the Friendships Offering if he could gather
for his Christmas bouquet a little pastoral story, suppose, by
Miss Mitford,1 a dramatic sketch by the Rev. George Croly,2
a few sonnets or impromptu stanzas to music by the gentlest
lovers and maidens of his acquaintance, and a legend of
the Apennines or romance of the Pyrenees by some adven-
turous traveller who had penetrated into the recesses of
those mountains, and would modify the traditions of the
country to introduce a plate by Clarkson Stanfield or J. D.
Harding. Whereas, now-a-days, the editor of a leading
monthly is responsible to his readers for exhaustive views
of the politics of Europe during the last fortnight; and
would think himself distanced in the race with his lunarian
rivals, if his numbers did not contain three distinct and
entirely new theories of the system of the universe, and
at least one hitherto unobserved piece of evidence of the
nonentity of God.
4. In one respect, however, the humilities of that
departed time were loftier than the prides of to-day — that
even the most retiring of its authors expected to be admired,
not for what he had discovered? but for what he was. It
did not matter in our dynasties of determined noblesse how
1 [See below, § 15 ; and Ruskin's Letters in a later volume of this edition.]
2 [Author of Salathiel and other works. For other mention of him, see Vol. I.
pp. 409, 445, and Vol. III. pp. xxxvii., 598. Harrison's Recollections of him are
in the University Magazine, N.S., vol. i. pp. 545, 704-710.]
3 [For Ruskin's views on the pride of discovery, see Vol. XVI. p. 374, and
General Index (*. "Discovery").]
96 ON THE OLD ROAD
many things an industrious blockhead knew, or how curious
things a lucky booby had discovered. We claimed, and
gave, no honour, but for real rank of human sense and
wit; and although this manner of estimate led to many
various collateral mischiefs — to much toleration of miscon-
duct in persons who were amusing, and of uselessness in
those of proved ability, there was yet the essential and
constant good in it, that no one hoped to snap up for
himself a reputation which his friend was on the point of
achieving, and that even the meanest envy of merit was
not embittered by a gambler's grudge at his neighbour's
fortune.
5. Into this incorruptible court of literature I was early
brought, whether by good or evil hap, I know not ; certainly
by no very deliberate wisdom in my friends or myself. A
certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all
my later writings) and the cheerfulness of a much pro-
tected, but not foolishly indulged childhood, made me early
a rhymester; and a shelf of the little cabinet by which I
am now writing is loaded with poetical effusions which
were the delight of my father and mother and I have not
yet the heart to burn.1 A worthy Scottish friend of my
father's, Thomas Pringle, preceded Mr. Harrison in the
editorship of Friendship's Offering, and doubtfully, but with
benignant sympathy, admitted the dazzling hope that one
day rhymes of mine might be seen in real print, on those
amiable and shining pages.
6. My introduction by Mr. Pringle to the poet Rogers,
on the ground of my admiration of the recently published
Italy, proved, as far as I remember, slightly disappointing
to the poet, because it appeared on Mr. Pringle's unadvised
cross-examination of me in the presence that I knew more
of the vignettes than the verses; and also slightly dis-
couraging to me because, this contretemps necessitating an
immediate change of subject, I thenceforward understood
none of the conversation, and when we came away was
1 [See iiow Vol. II.]
MY FIRST EDITOR 97
rebuked by Mr. Pringle for not attending to it. Had
his grave authority been maintained over me, my literary
bloom would probably have been early nipped ; but he
passed away into the African deserts;1 and the Favonian
breezes2 of Mr. Harrison's praise revived my drooping
ambition.
7. I know not whether most in that ambition, or to
please my father, I now began seriously to cultivate my
skill in expression. I had always an instinct of possessing
considerable word-power; and the series of essays written
about this time for the Architectural Magazine? under
the signature of Kata Phusin, contain sentences nearly as
well put together as any I have done since. But with-
out Mr. Harrison's ready praise, and severe punctuation,
I should have either tired of my labour, or lost it ; as it
was, though I shall always think those early years might
have been better spent, they had their reward. As soon
as I had anything really to say, I was able sufficiently
to say it ; and under Mr. Harrison's cheerful auspices,
and balmy consolations of my father under adverse criti-
cism, the first volume of Modern Painters established
itself in public opinion, and determined the tenor of my
future life.
8. Thus began a friendship, and in no unreal sense,
even a family relationship, between Mr. Harrison, my father
and mother, and me, in which there was no alloy what-
soever of distrust or displeasure on either side, but which
remained faithful and loving, more and more conducive to
every sort of happiness among us, to the day of my father's
death.
But the joyfullest days of it for us, and chiefly for me,
1 [Thomas Pringle (1789-18(34), Scottish poet ; obtained by Sir Walter Scott's
influence a grant of land in South Africa (1820) ; returned to London (1826), and
became secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society (1827)- Pringle's actual sojourn iu
South Africa preceded his introduction of Ruskiii to Rogers ; by " passed away
into the African deserts" Raskin means (as in PrcEterita, ii. § 5) "gone to Africa,
or let us hope, Arabia Felix, in the other world."]
a [Horace, Odes, iii. 7, 2.]
3 [The Poetry of Architecture: see Vol. I.]
98 ON THE OLD ROAD
cheered with concurrent sympathy from other friends — of
whom only one now is left1 — were in the triumphal Olym-
piad of years which followed the publication of the second
volume of Modern Painters, when Turner himself had
given to me his thanks, to my father and mother his true
friendship, and came always for their honour, to keep my
birthday with them ; the constant dinner party of the day
remaining in its perfect chaplet from 1844 to 1850, —
Turner, Mr. Thomas Richmond, Mr. George Richmond,
Samuel Prout, and Mr. Harrison.
9. Mr. Harrison, as my literary godfather, who had
held me at the Font of the Muses, and was answerable
to the company for my moral principles and my syntax,
always made " the speech " ; my father used most often to
answer for me in few words, but with wet eyes: (there
was a general understanding that any good or sorrow that
might come to me in literary life were infinitely more his)
and the two Mr. Richmonds held themselves responsible
to him for my at least moderately decent orthodoxy in
art, taking in that matter a tenderly inquisitorial function,
and warning my father solemnly of two dangerous heresies
in the bud, and of things really passing the possibilities
of the indulgence of the Church, said against Claude or
Michael Angelo. The death of Turner and other things,
far more sad than death, clouded those early days, but the
memory of them returned again after I had well won my
second victory with The Stones of Venice; and the two
Mr. Richmonds, and Mr. Harrison, and my father, were
again happy on my birthday, and so to the end.
10. In a far deeper sense than he himself knew, Mr.
Harrison was all this time influencing my thoughts and
opinions, by the entire consistency, contentment, and prac-
tical sense of his modest life. My father and he were both
flawless types of the true London citizen of olden days :
1 [George Richmond, who died in 1896. For Thomas Richmond, see Vol. XIV.
p. xxvii., and Prteteritu, ii. §§ 37-89.]
MY FIRST EDITOR 99
incorruptible, proud with sacred and simple pride, happy in
their function and position ; putting daily their total energy
into the detail of their business duties, and finding daily a
refined and perfect pleasure in the hearth-side poetry of
domestic life. Both of them, in their hearts, as romantic
as girls ; both of them inflexible as soldier recruits in any
matter of probity and honour, in business or out of it;
both of them utterly hating radical newspapers, and devoted
to the House of Lords ; my father only, it seemed to me,
slightly failing in his loyalty to the Worshipful the Mayor
and Corporation of London. This disrespect for civic dig-
nity was connected in my father with some little gnawing
of discomfort — deep down in his heart — in his own position
as a merchant, and with timidly indulged hope that his
son might one day move in higher spheres; whereas Mr.
Harrison was entirely placid and resigned to the will of
Providence which had appointed him his desk in the Crown
Life Office, never in his most romantic visions projected a
marriage for any of his daughters with a British baronet or
a German count, and pinned his little vanities prettily and
openly on his breast, like a nosegay, when he went out to
dinner. Most especially he shone at the Literary Fund,
where he was Registrar and had proper official relations,
therefore, always with the Chairman, Lord Mahon,1 or
Lord Houghton, or the Bishop of Winchester, or some
other magnificent person of that sort, with whom it was
Mr. Harrison's supremest felicity to exchange a not un-
frequent little joke — like a pinch of snuff — and to indicate
for them the shoals to be avoided and the channels to be
followed with flowing sail in the speech of the year ; after
which, if perchance there were any malignant in the com-
pany who took objection, suppose, to the claims of the
author last relieved, to the charity of the Society, or to
any claim founded on the production of a tale for Slack-
wood's Magazine, and of two sonnets for Friendship's
Offering; or if perchance there were any festering sharp
1 [Afterwards 5th Earl St»nhope ; the historian (1805-1875).]
xxxiv. G
100 ON THE OLD ROAD
thorn in Mr. Harrison's side in the shape of some distin-
guished radical, Sir Charles Dilke,1 or Mr. Dickens, or
anybody who had ever said anything against taxation, or
the Post Office, or the Court of Chancery, or the Bench
of Bishops, — then would Mr. Harrison, if he had full faith
in his Chairman, cunningly arrange with him some delicate
little extinctive operation to be performed on that malig-
nant or that radical in the course of the evening, and
would relate to us exultingly the next day all the incidents
of the passage of arms, and vindictively (for him) dwell on
the barbed points and double edge of the beautiful episco-
palian repartee with which it was terminated.
11. Very seriously, in all such public duties, Mr. Harrison
was a person of rarest quality and worth ; absolutely dis-
interested in his zeal, unwearied in exertion, always ready,
never tiresome, never absurd ; bringing practical sense, kindly
discretion, and a most wholesome element of good-humoured,
but incorruptible honesty, into everything his hand found
to do. Everybody respected, and the best men sincerely
regarded him ; and I think those who knew most of the
world were always the first to acknowledge his fine faculty
of doing exactly the right thing to exactly the right point
— and so pleasantly. In private life, he was to me an
object of quite special admiration, in the quantity of plea-
sure he could take in little things ; and he very materially
modified many of my gravest conclusions, as to the advan-
tages or mischiefs of modern suburban life. To myself
scarcely any dwelling-place and duty in this world would
have appeared (until, perhaps, I had tried them) less eligible
for a man of sensitive and fanciful mind than the New
Road, Camberwell Green, and the monotonous office work
in Bridge Street. And to a certain extent, I am still of
the same mind as to these matters, and do altogether, and
without doubt or hesitation, repudiate the existence of
New Road and Camberwell Green in general, no less than
the condemnation of intelligent persons to a routine of
1 [The first baronet (1810-1869).]
MY FIRST EDITOR 101
clerk's work broken only by a three weeks' holiday in the
decline of the year. On less lively, fanciful, and amiable
persons than my old friend, the New Road and the daily
desk do verily exercise a degrading and much to be
regretted influence. But Mr. Harrison brought the fresh-
ness of pastoral simplicity into the most faded corners of
the Green, lightened with his cheerful heart the most
leaden hours of the office, and gathered during his three
weeks' holiday in the neighbourhood, suppose, of Guildford,
Gravesend, Broadstairs, or Rustington, more vital recreation
and speculative philosophy than another man would have
got on the grand tour.
12. On the other hand, I, who had nothing to do all
day but what I liked, and could wander at will among
all the best beauties of the globe — nor that without suffi-
cient power to see and to feel them — was habitually a
discontented person, and frequently a weary one ; and the
reproachful thought which always rose in my mind when in
that unconquerable listlessness of surfeit from excitement I
found myself unable to win even a momentary pleasure
from the fairest scene, was always : " If but Mr. Harrison
were here instead of me ! "
13. Many and many a time I planned very seriously
the beguiling of him over the water. But there was always
something to be done in a hurry — something to be worked
out — something to be seen, as I thought, only in my own
quiet way. I believe if I had but had the sense to take
my old friend with me, he would have shown me ever so
much more than I found out by myself. But it was not
to be ; and year after year I went to grumble and mope
at Venice, or Lago Maggiore ; and Mr. Harrison to enjoy
himself from morning to night at Broadstairs or Box Hill.
Let me not speak with disdain of either. No blue languor
of tideless wave is worth the spray and sparkle of a South-
Eastern English beach, and no one will ever rightly enjoy
the pines of the Wengern Alp who despises the boxes of
Box Hill.
102 ON THE OLD ROAD
Nay, I remember me of a little rapture of George
Richmond himself on those fair slopes of sunny sward,
ending in a vision of Tobias and his dog — no less — led up
there by the helpful angel. (I have always wondered, by
the way, whether that blessed dog minded what the angel
said to him.1)
14. But Mr. Harrison was independent of these mere
aethereal visions, and surrounded himself only with a halo
of sublunary beatitude. Welcome always he, as on his side
frankly coming to be well, with the farmer, the squire, the
rector, the — I had like to have said, dissenting minister, but
I think Mr. Harrison usually evaded villages for summer
domicile which were in any wise open to suspicion of
Dissent in the air, — but with hunting rector, and the High
Church curate, and the rector's daughters, and the curate's
mother — and the landlord of the Red Lion, and the hostler
of the Red Lion stables, and the tapster of the Pig and
Whistle, and all the pigs in the backyard, and all the
whistlers in the street — whether for want of thought2 or
for gaiety of it, and all the geese on the common, ducks
in the horse-pond, and daws in the steeple, Mr. Harrison
was known and beloved by every bird and body of them
before half his holiday was over, and the rest of it was
mere exuberance of festivity about him, and applauding
coronation of his head and heart. Above all, he delighted
in the ways of animals and children. He wrote a birthday
ode — or at least a tumble-out-of-the-nest-day ode — to our
pet rook, Grip, which encouraged that bird in taking such
liberties with the cook, and in addressing so many imperti-
nences to the other servants, that he became the mere
plague, or as the French would express it, the "Black-
beast," of the kitchen at Denmark Hill for the rest of his
life. There was almost always a diary kept, usually, I
1 [That is, to Tobias ; whose name, above, has hitherto been misprinted "Tobit."
See For» Clavigera, Letter 74 (Vol. XXIX. p. 35), where, in referring to the same
Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha, Ruskin is careful to remind us that the dog belonged
to Tobias.]
1 [See Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia, 84: quoted also in Vol. XXVII. p. 89.]
MY FIRST EDITOR 103
think, in rhyme, of those summer hours of indolence ;
and when at last it was recognized, in due and reverent
way, at the Crown Life Office, that indeed the time had
drawn near when its constant and faithful servant should
be allowed to rest, it was perhaps not the least of my
friend's praiseworthy and gentle gifts to be truly capable of
rest; withdrawing himself into the memories of his useful
and benevolent life, and making it truly a holiday in its
honoured evening. The idea then occurred to him (and
it was now my turn to press with hearty sympathy the
sometimes intermitted task) of writing these Reminiscences :
valuable — valuable to whom, and for what, I begin to
wonder.
15. For indeed these memories are of people who are
passed away like the snow in harvest ; and now, with the
sharp-sickle reapers of full shocks of the fattening wheat of
metaphysics, and fair novelists Ruth-like in the fields of
barley, or more mischievously coming through the rye,1 —
what will the public, so vigorously sustained by these, care
to hear of the lovely writers of old days, quaint creatures
that they were ? — Merry Miss Mitford, actually living in
the country, actually walking in it, loving it,2 and finding
history enough in the life of the butcher's boy, and romance
enough in the story of the miller's daughter, to occupy all
her mind with, innocent of troubles concerning the Turkish
question ; steady-going old Barham, confessing nobody but
the Jackdaw of Rheims,3 and fearless alike of Ritualism, Dar-
winism, or disestablishment ; iridescent clearness of Thomas
Hood — the wildest, deepest infinity of marvellously jestful
men ; manly and rational Sydney, inevitable, infallible, in-
offensively wise of wit ; 4 — they are gone their way, and
1 [Allusions to Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth (185.3) and Miss Helen Mathers's Comin'
thro' the Rye (1875).]
2 [Compare Art of England, § 109 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 339).]
3 [For another reference to "The Jackdaw of Kheims" in Barham's Ingoldsby
Legends, see below, p. 545. For Hood, see Vol. XVIII. p. 487, and many other
places (General Index). For Sydney Smith, see Prceterita, ii. § 165.]
4 [Here in On the Old Road was appended, in a note, the letter on Sydney
Smith, now given below, p. 564.]
104 ON THE OLD ROAD
ours is far diverse; and they and all the less-known, yet
pleasantly and brightly endowed spirits of that time, are
suddenly as unintelligible to us as the Etruscans — not a
feeling they had that we can share in; and these pictures
of them will be to us valuable only as the sculpture under
the niches far in the shade there of the old parish church,
dimly vital images of inconceivable creatures whom we shall
never see the like of more.
2
THE RANGE OF
INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION
(1871)
[Bibliographical Note. — This paper was read before the Metaphysical Society
on April 25, 1871.
It was privately printed for the members, as an octavo pamphlet, pp. 5 ;
stitched and without wrappers. On p. 1 is the following drop-title : —
Metaphysical Society's Papers, No. xvi. | Theorem. | The Range of
Intellectual Conception is proportioned | to the Rank in Animated
Life. | Anon.
At the top of the page is the following intimation : " For Tuesday, April 25,
1871. | At the Grosvenor Hotel, 8.30 P.M. | Private." The headline is
" Theorem " on each page.
The paper was published in the Contemporary Review, June 1871,
vol. xvii. pp. 424-427.
It was reprinted in On the Old Road, 1885, vol. i. pp. 728-733 (§§ 589-
596), and again in the second edition of that work, vol. ii. pp. 367-373
(§§ 298-305).
The sections are here renumbered.]
THE RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEP-
TION PROPORTIONED TO THE RANK
IN ANIMATED LIFE
A THEOREM
1. I SUPPOSE this theorem to be a truism ; but I venture
to state it, because it is surely desirable that it should be
recognized as an axiom by metaphysicians, and practically
does not seem to me yet to have been so. I say " animated
life" because the word "life" by itself might have been
taken to include that of vegetables ; and I say " animated "
instead of "spiritual" life because the Latin "anima," and
pretty Italian corruption of it, "alma," involving the new
idea of nourishment of the body as by the Aliment or
Alms of God, seems to me to convey a better idea of
the existence of conscious creatures than any derivative
of " spiritus," " pneuma," or " psyche."
I attach, however, a somewhat lower sense to the word
" conception " than is, I believe, usual with metaphysicians,
for, as a painter, I belong to a lower rank of animated
being than theirs, and can only mean by conception what
I know of it. A painter never conceives anything abso-
lutely, and is indeed incapable of conceiving anything at all,
except as a phenomenon or sensation, or as the mode or
locus of a phenomenon or sensation. That which is not an
appearance, or a feeling, or a mode of one or the other, is
to him nothing.
2. For instance, he would deny the definition of the
phenomenon which he is himself first concerned in produc-
ing— a line — as " length without breadth." He would say,
107
108 ON THE OLD ROAD
" That which has no breadth is nothing, and nothing cannot
be long." He would define a line as a narrow and long
phenomenon, and a mathematician's idea of it as an idea
of the direction of such a phenomenon.
The act of conception or imagination with him, there-
fore, is merely the memory, simple or combined, of things
that he has seen or felt. He has no ray, no incipience of
faculty beyond this. No quantity of the sternest training
in the school of Hegel, would ever enable him to think
the Absolute. He would persist in an obstinate refusal to
use the word " think " at all in a transitive sense. He
would never, for instance, say, " I think the table," but " I
think the table is turning," or is not, as the case might be.
And if he were to be taught in any school whatever to
conceive a table, his first demand would be that he should
be shown one, or referred to other things that had the
qualities of one in illustrative degree.
3. And even respecting the constant methods or laws
of phenomena, he cannot raise the statement of them into
an act of conception. The statement that two right lines
can never enclose a space merely appears to him another
form of verbal definition, or, at the grandest, a definition
in prophetic extent, saying in other words that a line which
encloses, or ever may enclose, a space, is not, and never
will be, a right one. He would admit that what he now
conceives as two things, doubled, would always be what he
now conceives as four things. But assuming the existence
of a world in which, whenever two things were actually
set in juxtaposition with other two things, they became
actually three times, or actually five, he supposes that the
practice of arithmetic, and laws of it, would change in
relation to this new condition in matter; and he accepts,
therefore, the statement that twice two are four only as an
accident of the existing phenomena of matter.
4. A painter therefore may, I think, be looked upon
as only representing a high order of sensational creatures,
incapable of any but physical ideas and impressions; and
RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION 109
I continue my paper, therefore, only in the name of the
docile, and therefore improvable, part of the Brute Creation.
And in their name I would suggest that we should be
much more docile than we are if we were never occupied
in efforts to conceive things above our natures. To take
an instance, in a creature somewhat lower than myself. I
came by surprise the other day on a cuttle-fish in a pool
at low tide. On being touched with the point of my
umbrella, he first filled the pool with ink, and then finding
himself still touched in the darkness, lost his temper, and
attacked the umbrella with much psyche or anima, hug-
ging it tightly with all his eight arms, and making efforts,
like an impetuous baby with a coral, to get it into his
mouth. On my offering him a finger instead, he sucked
that with two or three of his arms with an apparently
malignant satisfaction, and on being shaken off, retired with
an air of frantic misanthropy into the cloud of his ink.
5. Now, it seems to me not a little instructive to reflect
how entirely useless such a manifestation of a superior
being was to his cuttle-fish mind, and how fortunate it
was for his fellow-octopods that he had no command of
pens as well as ink, nor any disposition to write on the
nature of umbrellas or of men.
It may be observed, further, that whatever ideas he
was able to form respecting either were positively false —
so contrary to truth as to be worse than none, and simply
dangerous to himself, so far as he might be induced to
act upon them — that, namely, an umbrella was an eatable
thing, or a man a conquerable one, that the individual
man who looked at him was hostile to him or that his
purposes could be interfered with by ejection of ink. Every
effort made by the fish under these convictions was harmful
to himself; his only wisdom would have been to lie quietly
and unreflectively in his pool.
And with us painters also, the only result of any efforts
we make to acquaint ourselves with the subjects of meta-
physical inquiry has been an increased sense of the prudence
110 ON THE OLD ROAD
of lying placidly and unreflectively in our pools, or at least
limiting ourselves to such gentle efforts of imagination as
may be consistent with the as yet imperfectly developed
powers, I do not say even of cephalopodic, but of Ascidian
nervous centres.1
6. But it may be easily imagined how pleasantly, to
persons thus subdued in self-estimation, the hope presents
itself which is involved in the Darwinian theory, that their
pools themselves may be capable of indefinite extension,
and their natures of indefinite development — the hope that
our descendants may one day be ashamed of us, and debate
the question of their parentage with astonishment and
disgust.
And it seems to me that the aim of elementary meta-
physical study might henceforth become more practical than
that of any other science. For in hitherto taking little
cognizance of the limitation of thought by the structure
of the body, we have surely also lost sight of the power
of certain modes of thought over the processes of that
structure. Taking, for instance, the emotion of anger, of
which the cephalopoda are indeed as capable as we are,
but inferior to us in being unable to decide whether they
do well to be angry or not, I do not think the chemical
effect of that emotion on the particles of the blood, in
decomposing and otherwise paralyzing or debilitating them,
has been sufficiently examined, nor the actual quantity of
nervous energy which a fit of anger of given violence
withdraws from the body and restores to space, neither the
correlative power of volition in restraining the passion, or
in directing the choice of salutary thought, as of salutary
herbs on streams. And even we painters, who dare not
call ourselves capable of thought, are capable of choice in
more or less salutary vision. In the degree in which we
lose such power of choice in vision, so that the spectral
phenomena which are the materials of our industry present
1 [Compare Love's Meinie, § 172 (Vol. XXV. p. 164).]
RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION 111
themselves under forms beyond our control, we become
insane ; and although for all our best work a certain degree
of this insanity is necessary, and the first occurring concep-
tions are uncommanded, as in dreams, we have, when in
health, always instantaneous power of accepting some, re-
fusing others, perfecting the outlines and colours of those
we wish to keep, and arranging them in such relations as
we choose.
7. And unquestionably the forms of the body which
painters instinctively recognize as best, and call " beautiful,"
are so far under the command of the plastic force of
voluntary thought, that the original and future authority
of such a plastic force over the whole of creation cannot
but seem to painters a direct, though not a certain influ-
ence ; and they would at once give their adherence to the
statement made many years since in his opening lectures in
Oxford by the present Regius Professor of Medicine l (as
far as I can recollect approximately, in these terms) — that
" it is quite as logical, and far more easy, to conceive of
original anima as adapting itself to forms of substance, than
of original substance as adapting to itself modes of mind."
8. It is surely, therefore, not too much to expect of
future schools of metaphysicians that they will direct man-
kind into methods of thought which will be at once happy,
unerring, and medicinal, and therefore entirely wise ; that
they will mark the limits beyond which uniformity must
be dangerous, and speculation vain; and that they will at
no distant period terminate the acrimony of theologians,
and the insolences, as well as the sorrows, of groundless
faith, by showing that it is appointed for us, in common
with the rest of the animal creation, to live in the midst
of an universe the nature of which is as much better than
we can believe, as it is greater than we can understand.
1 [Sir Henry Acland. HU inaugural lecture at Oxford (as Lee's Header in
Anatomy) was given on October 22, 184.5 : see J. B. Atlay's Memoir, p. 123.]
3
THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY
OF MIRACLE
(1873)
[Bibliographical Note. — This paper was read before the Metaphysical Society
on February 12, 1873.
It was privately printed for the members, as an octavo pamphlet, pp. 5 ;
stitched and without wrappers. On p. 1 is the following drop-title : —
Metaphysical Society's Papers, No. xxxii. | The Nature and Authority
of Miracle. | Anon.
At the top of the page is the following intimation : " To be read on
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 1873. | At the Grosvenor Hotel, at 8.30 P.M. | Private."
The paper was published in the Contemporary Review for March 1873 ;
vol. xxi. pp. 627-634.
It was next printed as a pamphlet for private distribution, with the
following title-page : —
The Nature and Authority | of | Miracle. | By | John Ruskin | 1873. |
(For private distribution.)
Crown 8vo, pp. 16. Title-page (with blank reverse), pp. 1-2. On p. 3
(with blank reverse) is the following Prefatory Note : —
"On behalf of a small knot of earnest Christians, I have sought and obtained
permission to print a few copies of the following essay, which appeared a short
time ago in the Contemporary Review. Our desire was to have so weighty an
argument in support of the Christian Verity in a handy and convenient form.
"J. B. H.
" Christmas, 1873."
Text, pp. 5-16. No imprint. The headline is "The Nature and
Authority of Miracle" throughout. Stitched, without wrappers.
Reprinted in On the Old Road, §§ 267-277 ; vol. ii. pp. 353-666, in
ed 1 (1885) ; vol. iii. pp. 363-376, in ed. 2 (1899).
The sections are here renumbered.]
THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY
OF MIRACLE
(1873)
1. EVERY age of the world has its own special sins, and
special simplicities ; and among our own most particular
humours in both kinds must be reckoned the tendency to
parade our discoveries of the laws of Nature, as if nobody
had ever heard of a law of Nature before.
The most curious result of this extremely absurd con-
dition of mind is perhaps the alarm of religious persons
on subjects of which one would have fancied most of
the palpable difficulties had been settled before the nine-
teenth century. The theory of prayer, for instance, and of
Miracles. I noticed a lengthy discussion in the newspapers
a month or two ago, on the propriety of praying for, or
against rain.1 It had suddenly, it seems, occurred to the
public mind, and to that of the gentlemen who write the
theology of the breakfast-table, that rain was owing to
natural causes ; and that it must be unreasonable to expect
God to supply on our immediate demand what could not
be provided but by previous evaporation. I noticed farther
that this alarming difficulty was at least softened to some
of our Metropolitan congregations by the assurances of their
ministers, that, although, since the last lecture by Professor
1 [Owing to the long continuance of rainy and stormy weather, the Archbishop
of Canterbury exhorted the clergy to use the Prayer " For Fair Weather " (Times,
December 26), and Archbishop Manning issued a pastoral to like effect (ibid.,
December 28). In the early part of January there was an almost daily discussion,
of the subject in the correspondence columns of the Times.]
xxxiv. 115 H
116 ON THE OLD ROAD
Tyndall at the Royal Institution, it had become impossible
to think of asking God for any temporal blessing, they
might still hope their applications for spiritual advantages
would occasionally be successful ; — thus implying that though
material processes were necessarily slow, and the laws of
Heaven respecting matter, inviolable, mental processes might
be instantaneous, and mental laws at any moment dis-
regarded by their Institutor : so that the spirit of a man
might be brought to maturity in a moment, though the
resources of Omnipotence would be overtaxed, or its con-
sistency abandoned, in the endeavour to produce the same
result on a greengage.
More logically, though not more wisely, other divines
have asserted that prayer is medicinally beneficial to our-
selves, whether we obtain what we ask for or not ; and
that our moral state is gradually elevated by the habit of
praying daily that the Kingdom of God may come, — though
nothing would more astonish us than its coming.
2. With these doubts respecting the possibility or pro-
priety of miracle, a more immediate difficulty occurs as to
its actual nature or definition. What is the quality of any
event which may be properly called " miraculous " ? What
are the degrees of wonderfulness ? — what the surpassing
degree of it, which changes the wonder into the sign, or
may be positively recognized by human intelligence as an
interruption, instead of a new operation, of those laws of
Nature with which, of late, we have become so exhaustively
acquainted ? For my own part, I can only say that I am
so haunted by doubt of the security of our best knowledge,
and by discontent in the range of it, that it seems to me
contrary to modesty, whether in a religious or scientific
point of view, to regard anything as miraculous. I know
so little, and this little I know is so inexplicable, that I
dare not say anything is wonderful because it is strange to
me, or not wonderful because it is familiar. I have not
the slightest idea how I compel my hand to write these
words, or my lips to read them : and the question which
NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE 117
was the thesis of Mr. Ward's very interesting paper, " Can
Experience prove the Uniformity of Nature ? " * is, in my
mind, so assuredly answerable with the negative which the
writer appeared to desire, that, precisely on that ground,
the performance of any so-called miracle whatever would
be morally unimpressive to me. If a second Joshua to-
morrow commanded the sun to stand still,1 and it obeyed
him ; and he therefore claimed deference as a miracle- worker,
I am afraid I should answer, " What ! a miracle that the
sun stands still? — not at all. I was always expecting it
would. The only wonder, to me, was its going on."2
3. But even assuming the demonstrable uniformity of
the laws or customs of Nature which are known to us, it
remains a difficult question what manner of interference
with such law or custom we might logically hold miraculous,
and what, on the contrary, we should treat only as proof
of the existence of some other law, hitherto undiscovered.
For instance, there is a case authenticated by the sig-
natures of several leading physicists in Paris, in which a
peasant girl, under certain conditions of morbid excitement,
was able to move objects at some distance from her with-
out touching them. Taking the evidence for what it may
be worth, the discovery of such a faculty would only, I
suppose, justify us in concluding that some new vital energy
was developing itself under the conditions of modern bodily
health ; and not that any interference with the laws of
Nature had taken place. Yet the generally obstinate refusal
of men of science to receive any verbal witness of such
facts is a proof that they believe them contrary to a code
of law which is more or less complete in their experience,
and altogether complete in their conception ; and I think
it is therefore their province to lay down for us the true
* Read at the November meeting of the Metaphysical Society.
1 [Joshua x. : see below, p. 327.]
8 [Compare Ariadne Florentina. S 202 (Vol. XXII. p. 438), and tors Clavigera,
Letter 66 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 613).] '
118 ON THE OLD ROAD
principle by which we may distinguish the miraculous viola-
tton of a known law from the sudden manifestation of an
unknown one.
4. In the meantime, supposing ourselves ever so incap-
able of defining law, or discerning its interruption, we need
not therefore lose our conception of the one, nor our faith
in the other. Some of us may no more be able to know
a genuine miracle, when we see it, than others to know a
genuine picture ; but the ordinary impulse to regard, there-
fore, all claim to miraculous power as imposture, or self-
deception, reminds me always of the speech of a French
lady to me, whose husband's collection of old pictures had
brought unexpectedly low prices in the auction-room,—
" How can you be so senseless," she said, " as to attach
yourself to the study of an art in which you see that all
excellence is a mere matter of opinion ? " Some of us have
thus come to imagine that the laws of Nature, as well as
those of Art, may be matters of opinion ; and I recollect
an ingenious paper by Mr. Frederic Harrison, some two
years ago, on the '* Subjective Synthesis," * — which, after
proving, what does not seem to stand in need of so elaborate
proof, that we can only know, of the universe, what we
can see and understand, went on to state that the laws of
Nature " were not objective realities, any more than they
were absolute truths."* Which decision, it seems to me,
is as if some modest and rational gnat, who had submitted
to the humiliating conviction that it could know no more
of the world than might be traversed by flight, or tasted
by puncture, yet, in the course of an experiment on a
philosopher with its proboscis, hearing him speak of the
Institutes of Justinian, should observe, on its return to the
society of gnats, that the Institutes of Justinian were not
* 1 quote from memory but am sure of the purport of the sentence,
though not of its expression.
1 [Printed in the Fortnightly Review, August 1870, vol. 14, pp. 184-197. Ruskin's
memory was textually accurate : see p. 185 of the Review.]
NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE 119
objective realities, any more than they were absolute truths.
And, indeed, the careless use of the word "Truth" itself,
often misleads even the most accurate thinkers. A law
cannot be spoken of as a truth, either absolute or concrete.
It is a law of nature, that is to say, of my own particular
nature, that I fall asleep after dinner, and my confession
of this fact is a truth ; but the bad habit is no more a
truth than the statement of it is a bad habit.
5. Nevertheless, in spite of the treachery of our concep-
tions and language, and in just conclusion even from our
narrow experience, the conviction is fastened in our hearts
that the habits or laws of Nature are more constant than
our own and sustained by a firmer Intelligence : so that,
without in the least claiming the faculty of recognition of
miracle, we may securely define its essence. The pheno-
mena of the universe with which we are acquainted are
assumed to be, under general conditions, constant, but to be
maintained in that constancy by a supreme personal Mind ;
and it is farther supposed that, under particular conditions,
this ruling Person interrupts the constancy of these pheno-
mena, in order to establish a particular relation with inferior
creatures.
6. It is, indeed, singular how ready the inferior creatures
are to imagine such a relation, without any very decisive
evidence of its establishment. The entire question of miracle
is involved with that of the special providences which are
supposed, in some theories of religion, sometimes to con-
found the enemies, and always to protect the darlings of
God: and in the minds of amiable persons, the natural and
very justifiable sense of their own importance to the well-
being of the world may often encourage the pleasant sup-
position that the Deity, however improvident for others,
will be provident for them. I recollect a paper on this
subject by Dr. Guthrie, published not long ago in some
religious periodical, in which the writer mentioned, as a
strikingly Providential circumstance, the catching of his foot
on a ledge of rock which averted what might otherwise
120 ON THE OLD ROAD
have been a fatal fall.1 Under the sense of the loss to
the cause of religion and the society of Edinburgh, which
might have been the consequence of the accident, it is
natural that Dr. Guthrie should refer to it with strongly
excited devotional feelings : yet, perhaps, with better reason,
a junior member of the Alpine Club, less secure of the
value of his life, would have been likely on the same
occasion rather to be provoked by his own awkwardness,
than impressed by the providential structure of the rock.
At the root of every error on these subjects we may trace
either an imperfect conception of the universality of Deity,
or an exaggerated sense of individual importance : and yet it
is no less certain that every train of thought likely to lead
us in a right direction must be founded on the acknow-
ledgment that the personality of a Deity who has com-
manded the doing of Justice and the showing of Mercy8
can be no otherwise manifested than in the signal support
of causes which are just, and favour of persons who are
kind. The beautiful tradition of the deaths of Cleobis and
Bito,3 indeed, expresses the sense proper to the wisest men,
that we are unable either to discern or decide for ourselves
in what the favour of God consists : but the promises of
the Christian religion imply that its true disciples will be
enabled to ask with prudence what is to be infallibly
granted.
7. And, indeed, the relations between God and His
creatures which it is the function of miracle to establish,
depend far more on the correspondence of events with
human volition than on the marvellous character of the
events themselves. These relations are, in the main, two-
fold. Miracles are either to convince, or to assist. We
are apt to think of them as meant only to establish faith,
but many are for mere convenience of life. Elisha's making
1 [For other references to Dr. Guthrie, see Vol. VI. p. 483 ; Vol. XII. p. xxx. ;
Vol. XVII. p. xxviii. ; Vol. XXII. p. 445 ; and Vol. XXVI. p. xxvi.]
2 [Zechariah vii. 9 ; compare Vol. XVI. p. 96.1
3 [See Vol. VII. p. 277, and Vol. XVIII. p. 354.]
NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE 121
the axe-head swim, and the poisoned soup wholesome,1 were
not to convince anybody, but merely to give help in the
quickest way. Conviction is, indeed, in many of the most
interesting miracles, quite a secondary end, and often an
unattained one. The hungry multitude are fed, the ship in
danger relieved by sudden calm.2 The disciples disregard
the multiplying of the loaves, yet are strongly affected by
the change in the weather.
But whether for conviction, aid (or aid in the terrific
form of punishment), the essence of miracle is as the mani-
festation of a Power which can direct or modify the other-
wise constant phenomena of Nature; and it is, I think, by
attaching too great importance to what may be termed
the missionary work of miracle, instead of what may in
distinction be called its pastoral work, that many pious
persons, no less than infidels, are apt to despise, and there-
fore to deny, miraculous power altogether.
8. " We do not need to be convinced," they say, " of
the existence of God by the capricious exertion of His
power. We are satisfied in the normal exertion of it; and
it is contrary to the idea of His Excellent Majesty that
there should be any other."
But all arguments and feelings must be distrusted which
are founded on our own ideas of what it is proper for
Deity to do. Nor can I, even according to our human
modes of judgment, find any impropriety in the thought
that an energy may be natural without being normal,
and Divine without being constant. The wise missionary
may indeed require no miracle to confirm his authority ;
but the despised pastor may need miracle to enforce
it, or the compassionate governor to make it beneficial.
And it is quite possible to conceive of Pastoral Miracle
as resulting from a power as natural as any other, though
not as perpetual. The wind bloweth where it listeth,3 and
1 [2 Kings vi. 6 ; iv. 40, 41.]
1 [Matthew xiv. 17 ; Mark iv. 39.]
3 [John iii. 8.]
122 ON THE OLD ROAD
some of the energies granted to men born of the Spirit
may be manifested only on certain conditions and on rare
occasions ; and therefore be always wonderful or miraculous,
though neither disorderly nor unnatural.
Thus St. Paul's argument to Agrippa, " Why should it
be thought with you a thing impossible that God should
raise the dead ? " * would be suicidal, if he meant to appeal
to the miracle as a proof of the authority of his mission.
But, claiming no authority, he announces as a probable
and acceptable fact the opening of a dispensation in which
it was as natural for the dead to be raised as for the
Gospel to be preached to the poor, though both the one
and the other were miraculous signs that the Master of
Nature had come down to be Emmanuel among men, and
that no prophet was in future to look for another.2
We have indeed fallen into a careless habit of using the
words supernatural and superhuman, as if equivalent. A
human act may be super-doggish, and a Divine act super-
human, yet all three acts absolutely Natural. It is, perhaps,
as much the virtue of a Spirit to be inconstant as of a
poison to be sure, and therefore always impossible to weigh
the elements of moral force in the balance of an apothecary.
9. It is true that, in any abstract reflection on these
things, one is instantly brought to pause by questions of
the reasonableness, the necessity, or the expedient degree
of miracle. Christ walks on the water,3 overcoming gravity
to that extent. Why not have flown, and overcome it
altogether? He feeds the multitude by breaking existent
loaves ; why not have commanded the stones into bread ? 4
Or, instead of miraculously feeding either an assembly or
a nation, why not enable them, like Himself, miraculously
to fast,5 for the needful time? And in generally admitting
1 [Acts xxvi. 8. Ruskuij quoting from memory, gives " impossible " for ' ' in-
credible."]
2 [Matthew i. 23 ; xi. 3-5.]
3 'Matthew xiv. 25.]
4 Matthew iv. 3.]
6 [Matthew iv. 2.J
the theories of pastoral miracle the instant question sub-
mits itself, — Supposing a nation wisely obedient to divinely
appointed ministers of a sensible Theocracy, how much
would its government be miraculously assisted, and how
many of its affairs brought to miraculous prosperity of
issue? Would its enemies be destroyed by angels, and
its food poured down upon it from the skies, or would the
supernatural aid be limited to diminishing the numbers
of its slain in battle,* or to conducting its merchant
ships safely, or instantaneously, to the land whither they
would go?1
But no progress can be made, and much may be pre-
vented, in the examination of any really difficult human
problem, by thus approaching it on the hypothetical side.
Such approach is easy to the foolish, pleasant to the proud,
and convenient to the malicious, but absolutely fruitless of
practical result. Our modesty and wisdom consist alike in
the simple registry of the facts cognizable by us, and our
duty, in making active use of them for the present, with-
out concerning ourselves as to the possibilities of the future.
And the two main facts we have to deal with are that
the historical record of miracle is always of inconstant
power, and that our own actual energies are inconstant
almost in exact proportion to their worthiness.
10. First, I say, the histoiy of miracle is of inconstant
power. St. Paul raises Eutychus from death, and his
garments effect miraculous cure; yet he leaves Trophimus
sick at Miletum, recognizes only the mercy of God in the
recovery of Epaphroditus, and, like any uninspired physi-
cian, recommends Timothy wine for his infirmities.2 And
in the second place, our own energies are inconstant almost
* "And be it death proclaimed through our host to boast of this." —
Henry V. [Act iv. sc. 8.]
1 [Psalms cvii. 30 ( Prayer-book).]
2 [Acts xx. 9, 10 ; xix. 12 ; 2 Timothy iv. 20 ; Philippians ii. 27 ; 1 Timothy
v. 23.J
124 ON THE OLD ROAD
in proportion to their nobleness. We breathe with regu-
larity, and can calculate upon the strength necessary for
common tasks. But the record of our best work, and of
our happiest moments, is always one of success which we
did not expect, and of enthusiasm which we could not
prolong.
11. And therefore we can only look for an imperfect
and interrupted, but may surely insist on an occasional,
manifestation of miraculous credentials by every minister of
religion. There is no practical difficulty in the discernment
of marvel properly to be held superhuman. It is indeed
frequently alleged by the admirers of scientific discovery
that many things, which were wonderful fifty years ago,
have ceased to be so now;1 and I am perfectly ready to
concede to them that what they now themselves imagine
to be admirable, will not in the future be admired. But
the petty sign, said to have been wrought by the augur
Attus before Tarquin,2 would be as impressive at this
instant as it was then; while the utmost achievements of
recent scientific miracle have scarcely yet achieved the
feeding of Lazarus their beggar, still less the resurrection
of Lazarus their friend.3 Our Christian faith, at all events,
stands or falls by this test. " These signs shall follow them
that believe,"4 are words which admit neither of qualifica-
tion nor misunderstanding; and it is far less arrogant in
any man to look for such Divine attestation of his autho-
rity as a teacher, than to claim, without it, any authority
to teach. And assuredly it is no proof of any unfitness or
unwisdom in such expectations, that, for the last thousand
years, miraculous powers seem to have been withdrawn
from, or at least indemonstrably possessed, by a Church
which, having been again and again warned by its Master
that Riches were deadly to Religion, and Love essential to
it, has nevertheless made wealth the reward of Theological
;Compare Vol. XVI. pp. 154-155 n.]
The cutting of a whetstone by a razor : see Livy, i. 36.]
]See Luke xvi. 20 ; John xi. 14.]
Mark xvi. 17.]
NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE 125
learning, and controversy its occupation. There are states
of moral death no less amazing than physical resurrection ;
and a Church which permits its clergy to preach what they
have ceased to believe, and its people to trust what they
refuse to obey, is perhaps more truly miraculous in impo-
tence, than it would be miraculous in power, if it could
move the fatal rocks of California1 to the Pole, and plant
the sycamore and the vine between the ridges of the sea.
1 [For another reference to the discovery of gold in California, see Vol. XXVIII.
p. 113.]
4
ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIAEVAL
CHRISTENDOM
(1875)
[Bibliographical Note. — The papers on Mediaeval Schools of Art, for which
Ruskiu subsequently wrote this Preface, had first appeared in The Monthly
Packet, 1873, vols. 16 and 17, and Ruskin refers to them in Pleasures of
England, § 99 n. (Vol. XXXIII. p. 491 n.).
They were collected in 1876 in a book with the following title-page: —
The Art Schools | of | Mediaeval Christendom. | By A. C. Owen. | Edited
by J. Ruskin, Ch. Ch., Oxford, | Slade Professor. | London : Mozley
& Smith, 6 Paternoster Row. | 1876.
Crown 8vo, pp. x. + 502. Riiskin's Preface occupies pp. v.-viii. The Notes
which Ruskiu added to the text are given below (pp. 130-132).
The Preface with these Notes was reprinted in On the Old Road, 1886,
vol. i. pp. 667-681 (§§ 549-551) ; and again in the second edition of that
book, 1899, vol. ii. pp. 307-311 (§§ 258-260).
In the case of Note 6, the quotation has here been extended ; it having
been erroneously stated in On the Old Road that Ruskin's note occurred
at the word "people."]
ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIEVAL
CHRISTENDOM
A PREFACE
THE number of British and American travellers who take
unaffected interest in the early art of Europe is already
large, and is daily increasing; daily, also, as I thankfully
perceive, feeling themselves more and more in need of a
guide-book containing as much trustworthy indication as
they can use of what they may most rationally spend their
time in examining. The books of reference published by
Mr. Murray, though of extreme value to travellers, who
make it their object to see (in his, and their, sense of the
word) whatever is to be seen, are of none whatever, or
may perhaps be considered, justly, as even of quite the
reverse of value, to travellers who wish to see only what
they may in simplicity understand, and with pleasure re-
member ; while the histories of art, and biographies of artists,
to which the more earnest student in his novitiate must
have recourse, are at once so voluminous, so vague, and
so contradictory, that I cannot myself conceive his deriving
any other benefit from their study than a deep conviction
of the difficulty of the subject, and of the incertitude of
human opinions.
It seemed to me, on reading the essays collected in
this volume, as they appeared in the periodical for which
they were written, that the author not only possessed her-
self a very true discernment of the qualities in mediaeval
art which were justly deserving of praise, but had unusually
clear understanding of the degree in which she might expect
to cultivate such discernment in the general mind of polite
travellers; nor have I less admired her aptitude in collation
of essentially illustrative facts, so as to bring the history of
129
130 ON THE OLD ROAD
a very widely contemplative range of art into tenable com-
pass and very graceful and serviceable form. Her reading,
indeed, has been, with respect to many very interesting
periods of religious workmanship, much more extensive than
my own ; and when I consented to edit the volume of col-
lected papers, it was not without the assurance of consider-
able advantage to myself during the labour of revising them.
The revision, however, I am sorry to say, has been
interrupted and imperfect ; very necessarily the last from
the ignorance I have just confessed of more than one seg-
ment of the great illuminated field of early religious art, to
which the writer most wisely has directed equal and sym-
metrical attention, — and interrupted partly under extreme
pressure of other occupation, and partly in very fear of
being tempted to oppress the serenity of the general pros-
pect, which I think these essays are eminently calculated to
open before an ingenious reader, with the stormy chiaroscuro
of my own preference and reprobation. I leave the work,
therefore, absolutely Miss Owen's, with occasional note of
remonstrance, but without retouch, though it must be dis-
tinctly understood that when I allow my name to stand as
the editor of a book, it is in no mere compliment (if my
editorship could indeed be held as such) to the genius or
merit of the author ; but it means that I hold myself en-
tirely responsible, in main points, for the accuracy of the
views advanced, and that I wish the work to be received,
by those who have confidence in my former teaching, as
an extension and application of the parts of it which I
have felt to be incomplete.
OXFORD, November 27, 1875.
[The " notes of remonstrance " or approbation scattered through the
volume are given below, preceded in each case by the (italicised) statement
or expression giving rise to them: — ]
( 1 ) P. 73. " The peculiar characteristic of the Byzantine churches is the
dome." " Form derived first from the Catacombs. See Lord Lindsay." *
1 [Sketches of the History of Christian Art, vol. i. p. 7.]
MEDIEVAL ART SCHOOLS 131
(2) P. 89- " The octagon baptistery at Florence, ascribed to Lombard
kings . . ." " No ; it is Etruscan work of pure descent." l
(3) Id. " S. Michele, of Pavia, pure Lombard of seventh century, rebuilt
in tenth." "Churches were often rebuilt with their original sculptures. I
believe many in this church to be Lombard. See next page." 2
(4) P. 95. " The revolution begun by Rafaelle has ended in the vulgar paint-
ing, the sentimental prints, and the coloured statuettes, which have made the religious
art of the nineteenth century a by-word for its feebleness on the one side, its super-
stition on the other." " Excellent ; but my good scholar has not distinguished
vulgar from non-vulgar naturalism. Perhaps she will as I read on." 3
(5) P. 108. "It may be ... it is scarcely credible." What does it
matter what may be or what is scarcely credible ? I hope the reader will
consider what a waste of time the thinking of things is when we can
never rightly know them."
(6) P. 109. On the statements that "no vital school of art has ever
existed save as the expression of the vital and unquestioned faith of a people,"
and that Catholicism (which embodied such a faith) was succeeded by a
theology "which proclaimed every man his own teacher and his own priest
with an inalienable right to believe the wrong," followed by some remarks
on external helps to devotion, there is a note at the word " wrong."
" Down to this line this page is unquestionably and entirely true. I do
not answer for the rest of the clause, but do not dispute it."
(7) P. 113. S. Michele at Lucca. "The church is now only a modern
architect's copy." 4
(8) P. 129. "There is a good model of this pulpit" (Niccola's in the
Pisan Baptistery) "in the Kensington Museum, through which we may learn much
of the rise of Gothic sculpture." " You cannot do anything of the kind.
Pisan sculpture can only be studied in the original marble ; half its virtue
is in the chiselling."5
(9) P. 136. " S. Donato's shrine" (by Giovanni Pisano) "in Arezzo Cathe-
dral is one of the finest monuments of the Pisan school." "No. He tried to be
too fine, and overdid it. The work is merely accumulated commonplace."
(10) P. 170. On Giotto drawing without compasses a circle with a
crayon, " not a brush, with which, as Professor Ruskin explained, the feat would
have been impossible. See ' Giotto and his Works in Padua.' " " Don't ; but
practise with a camel's-hair brush till you can do it. I knew nothing
of brush-work proper when I wrote that essay on Padua." 6
1 [See Vol. XXIII. p. 241.]
2 [That is, of Miss Owen's book, where she mentions the rebuilding of S.
Atnbrogio at Milan in that way. For references to S. Michele, Pavia, see Vol. IX.
pp. 40, 263, 293, 336; Vol. X. p. 61.]
1 [Compare the last note in the book, pp. 487-488, where Miss Owen's state-
ment that "the cause of Rafaelle' 9 popularity . . . has been that predominance of
exaggerated dramatic representation, which in his pictures is visible abor\: all moral and
spiritual qualities," is noted to be "Intensely and accurately true."]
4 (The fa9ade was rebuilt in 1862. Compare Vol. XXI. p. 123 and n.]
5 [For the pulpit, see Plate VI. in Val d'Arno, Vol. XXIII. p. 23.]
• [Miss Owen's reference is to § 6 (Vol. XXIV. p. 20) ; but Ruskin, in making
his deprecatory comment, did not look back to his essay, and Miss Owen's version
of his words ia precisely the reverse of what he really said. Giotto's feat, he said,
was in drawing the circle with the brush, not with a crayon.]
XXXIV. I
132 ON THE OLD ROAD
(11) P. 179. In the first of the bas-reliefs of Giotto's tower at Florence,
" Noah lies asleep, or, at Professor Ruskin maintains, drunk." " I don't
' maintain ' anything of the sort ; I know it. He is as drunk as a man
can be, and the expression of drunkenness given with deliberate and
intense skill, as on the angle of the Ducal Palace at Venice."1
(12) P. 179- On Giotto's " astronomy, ^figured by an old man" on the
same tower. " Above which are seen, by the astronomy of his heart, the
heavenly host represented above the stars." 2
(13) P. 190. "The Loggia dei Lanzi" (at Florence) . . . "the round
arches, new to those times. . . . See Vasari." " Vasari is an ass with precious
things in his panniers;* but you must not ask his opinion on any matter.
The round arches new to those times had been the universal structure form
in all Italy, Roman or Lombard, feebly and reluctantly pointed in the
thirteenth century, and occasionally, as in the Campo Santo of Pisa, and
Orcagna's own Or San Michele, standing within three hundred yards of
the Loggia arches ' new to those times,' filled with tracery, itself composed
of intersecting round arches. Now, it does not matter two soldi to the
history of art who built, but who designed and carved the Loggia. It is
out and out the grandest in Italy, and its archaic virtues themselves are
impracticable and inconceivable. I don't vouch for it being Orcagna's, nor
do I vouch for the Campo Santo frescoes being his. I have never specially
studied him ; nor do I know what men of might there were to work with
or after him. But I know the Loggia to be mighty architecture of
Orcagna's style and time, and the Last Judgment and Triumph of Death
in the Campo Santo to be the sternest lessons written on the walls of
Tuscany,4 and worth more study alone than English travellers usually give
to Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Florence altogether."
(14) P. 468. " The Gothic style for churches never took root in Venice."
"Not quite correct. The Ducal Palace traceries are shown in the Stones
of Venice (ii. p. 234 5) to have been founded on those of the Frari."
(15) P. 471. Mantegna. "No feeling had he for vital beauty of human
face, or the lower creatures of the earth." To this Miss Owen adds in a note,
" Professor Ruskin reminds me to notice here, in qualification, Mantegna's
power of painting inanimate forms, as, e.g., in the trees and leaves of his
Madonna of the National Gallery. ' He is,' says Professor Ruskin,6 ' the
most wonderful leaf-painter of Lombardy.' "
1 [See, for the Noah on the Campanile, Vol. XXIII. Plate 44, aud Mornings in
Florence, § 125 (ibid., p. 418) : see also Schools of Art in Florence, § 88 (ibid., p. 247).
In referring to the sculpture of " The Drunkenness of Noah " on the Ducal Palace,
Ruskin's recollection here failed, as, in what he wrote of it when at Venice in 1851
and 1876-1877, he was careful to note that the expression of drunkenness was not
clearlv indicated : see Vol. X. pp. 359 seg., and Vol. XXIV. pp. 442-443.]
» [See Vol. XXIII. Plate 45 and p. 419.]
1 [Compare Vol. XII. p. 258; Ariadne Florentine § 194 (Vol. XXII. p. 433);
and Vol. XXIII. p. 395 n.]
4 [For Ruskin's descriptions of these frescoes, see Vol. XII. pp. 146, 147 ; and
see the numerous references in the General Index.]
[The reference is to the first edition : see now Vol. X. p. 272. ]
• [That is, in a letter to Miss Owen : compare Notes on Educational Series,
No. 221 (Vol. XXI. p. 140) ; Modern Painters, vol. v. (Vol. VII. p. 118) ; and Art
of England, § 206 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 403).]
5
RAILWAYS IN THE
LAKE DISTRICT
(1876)
[Bibliographical Note. — This piece was written in connexion with the Protest
organised by Mr. Robert Somervell (a Companion of St. George's Guild)
in 1875-1876 against the threatened extension of the railway from Winder-
mere to Ambleside and Rydal.
Mr. Somervell's Protest was first issued in 1875 or early in 1876, as a
quarto paper (pp. 8) containing a form of petition at the end. With this
paper, a printed slip was issued containing the following announcement,
written by Rusk in : —
"The author of Modern Painters earnestly requests all persons who
may have taken interest in his writings, or who have any personal
regard for him, to assist him now in the circulation of the enclosed
paper, drawn up by his friend Mr. Somervell, for the defence of the
Lake District of England, and to press the appeal, so justly and tem-
perately made in it, on the attention of their personal friends."
This appeal by Ruskin was the subject of a leading article in the Daily
News, January 17, 1876 ; of a notice in the Academy, January 22 ; and
of some verses, with a picture by Linley Samboume, in Punch, February 5
(vol. 70, p. 34). These latter were headed "Lady of the Lake loquitur."
The first and last stanzas were as follow : —
" List ! Let my silver voice at last be heard,
Echoing that eloquence which oft hath stirred
Even Philistine feeling !
Let not the Trade-Gnome further still intrude
Within the sweet sequestered solitude,
Where Nature's coyest charms may yet be wooed
To full revealing.
Though Commerce claim free course, and subtle Greed,
In mask of Progress, her convenience plead,
Should Wisdom not be chary
In casting Nature's dearest dowers away '.
Leave Lakeland still to elf, and fawn, and fay,
For Art and Thought and Toil self's place of play,
And sanctuary ! "
In Fort Clavigera, Letter 66 (June 1876), Ruskin requested his friends to
forward signed petitions to him at Brantwood (Vol. XXVIII. p. 612 n.).
In acknowledgment of such petitions, he issued an octavo fly-leaf
(printed on one side only and undated), as follows : —
" I am most grateful for the signed petitions against the Rydal rail-
way which have been hitherto forwarded to me (one from India, full of
names of extreme weight). 1 asked my friends to send me in these
petitions at once, that I might judge of our present strength ; but we
have still time before us ; and I again most earnestly commend the
cause to the strenuous efforts of all who care for the integrity of
English peasant life, or for the peace and power of her mountains.
The following names attached to the last petition sent to me from
136
136 ON THE OLD ROAD
London are surely those of men who have no less claim on public
gratitude than title to public respect :
T. Armstrong
F. Harwell
G. P. Boyce
W. Brodie, R.S.A.
Vicat Cole
T. Danby
E. Duncan
B. Foster
A. Fripp
G. Fripp
J. Gilbert, R.A.
E. A. Goodall
Walter Goodall
Robert Herdman, R.S.A.
P. Hewett, F.R.S.
A. W. Hunt
Colin Hunter
J. Jenkins
C. S. Keene
R. Lehmann
John Lewis
W. MTaggart, R.S.A.
H. M. Marshall
H. Moore
W. Morris
P. Naftel
W. Q. Orchardson, A.R.A.
Noel Paton, R.S.A.
W. A. Paton, R.S.A.
J. Pettie, R.A.
W. Collingwood Smith
G. E. Street, R.A.
W. Topham
H. C. Whaite"
This fly-leaf (which is among the rarer Ruskiniana) was circulated in some
copies of Fort, and also in some copies of the pamphlet next described in
this Note.
In 1876 Mr. Somervell re-issued his protest, iii a revised and extended
form, as a pamphlet. The title-page was as follows : —
A Protest against the | Extension of Railways | in the | Lake District,
j By Robert Somervell, | With articles thereon reprinted from the
"Saturday Review," &c. | And a Preface by | John Ruskiu, LL.D. |
Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Slade Professor of Fine Art,
&c. | Windermere : J. Garnett. | London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co. |
Wholesale Price, Ninepence, 25/24 ; Retail, One Shilling, nett.
Octavo, pp. vi. + 78. Issued in grey paper wrappers, with the following
title (in a single ruled frame) on the front : ' ' A Protest | against the |
Extension of Railways | in the | Lake District." The pamphlet reprinted,
inter alia, the article in the Daily News and the verses in Punch, mentioned
above.
A review of the pamphlet appeared in the Spectator, October 28, 1876.
Raskin's Preface (here pp. 137-143) occupied pp. 1-9.
It was reprinted in On the Old Road, 1885, vol. i. pp. 682-688 (§§ 552-
556) ; and again in the second edition of that work, 1899, vol. ii. pp. 312-
320 (§§ 261-265).
The sections are now renumbered.]
THE EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS IN
THE LAKE DISTRICT
A PROTEST
(1876)
1. THE evidence collected in the following pages,1 in sup-
port of their pleading, is so complete, and the summary of
his cause given with so temperate mastery by Mr. Somer-
vell, that I find nothing to add in circumstance, and little
to reinforce in argument. And I have less heart to the
writing even of what brief preface so good work might by
its author's courtesy be permitted to receive from me, occu-
pied as I so long have been in efforts tending in the same
direction, because, on that very account, I am far less in-
terested than my friend in this local and limited resistance
to the elsewhere fatally victorious current of modern folly,
cruelty, and ruin. When the frenzy of avarice is daily
drowning our sailors, suffocating our miners, poisoning our
children, and blasting the cultivable surface of England into
a treeless waste of ashes,* what does it really matter whether
a flock of sheep, more or less, be driven from the slopes of
Helvellyn, or the little pool of Thirlmere filled with shale,
or a few wild blossoms of St. John's vale2 lost to the
* See — the illustration being coincidently given as I correct this page
for press — the description of the horrible service, and history of the fatal
explosion, of dynamite, on the once lovely estates of the Duke of Hamilton,
in the Hamilton Advertiser of 10th and 17th June.3
1 [Of Mr. Somervell's pamphlet : see Bibliographical Note.]
2 [Compare Fora Clavlgera, Letter 79 (Vol. XXIX. p. 162).]
3 [The correct reference is June 24, on which date the paper gave a long account
of an explosion of dynamite, killing seven men and injuring three, at Burnbank.
The dynamite was stored for service of the railway contractors in blasting rocks,
etc., in connexion with the Bothwell and Hamilton line.]
137
138 ON THE OLD ROAD
coronal of English spring ? Little to any one ; and — let me
say this, at least, in the outset of all saying — nothing to
me. No one need charge me with selfishness in any word
or action for defence of these mossy hills. I do not move,
with such small activity as I have yet shown in the busi-
ness, because I live at Coniston (where no sound of the
iron wheels by Dunmail Raise can reach me), nor because
I can find no other place to remember Wordsworth by
than the daffodil margin of his little Rydal marsh.1 What
thoughts and work are yet before me, such as he taught,
must be independent of any narrow associations. All my
own dear mountain grounds and treasure-cities, Chamouni,
Interlachen, Lucerne, Geneva, Venice, are long ago destroyed
by the European populace ; and now, for my own part,
I don't care what more they do ; they may drain Loch
Katrine, drink Loch Lomond, and blow all Wales and
Cumberland into a heap of slate shingle; the world is wide
enough yet to find me some refuge during the days ap-
pointed for me to stay in it. But it is no less my duty, in
the cause of those to whom the sweet landscapes of Eng-
land are yet precious, and to whom they may yet teach
what they taught me, in early boyhood, and would still if
1 had it now to learn, — it is my duty to plead with what
earnestness I may, that these sacred sibylline books may be
redeemed from perishing.
2. But again, I am checked, because I don't know how
to speak to the persons who need to be spoken to in this
matter.
Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much-changed
Oxford, I am happy to find myself, in one of the little
latticed cells of the Bodleian Library, and my kind and
much-loved friend, Mr. Coxe,2 were to come to me with
news that it was proposed to send nine hundred excur-
sionists through the library every day, in three parties of
1 [See Fors Clavigera, Letter 76 (Vol. XXIX. p. 84 and n.).]
2 [At that time Bodley's Librarian : see Vol. XX. p. xxx. ; Vol. XXI. p. xxiii. ;
Vol. XXII. p. 230.]
RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT 139
three hundred each; that it was intended they should
elevate their minds by reading all the books they could lay
hold of while they stayed; — and that practically scientific
persons accompanying them were to look out for and burn
all the manuscripts that had any gold in their illumina-
tions, that the said gold might be made of practical service ;
but that he, Mr. Coxe, could not, for his part, sympathize
with the movement, and hoped I would write something in
deprecation of it ! As I should then feel, I feel now, at
Mr. Somervell's request that I would write him a preface
in defence of Helvellyn. What could I say for Mr. Coxe ?
Of course, that nine hundred people should see the library
daily, instead of one, is only fair to the nine hundred,
and if there is gold in the books, is it not public property ?
If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shall not the public
burn or hammer it out — and they say they will, of course
— in spite of us ? What does it signify to them how we
poor old quiet readers in this mountain library feel ? True,
we know well enough, — what the nine hundred excursionist
scholars don't — that the library can't be read quite through
in a quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in
real reading, quite different from that of turning pages ; and
that gold in a missal, or slate in a crag, may be more
precious than in a bank or a chimney-pot. But how are
these practical people to credit us, — these, who cannot read,
nor ever will ; and who have been taught that nothing is
virtuous but care for their bellies, and nothing useful but
what goes into them?
8. Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the
matter, made clear as they are in the following pages,
can be briefly stated for the consideration of any candid
person.
The arguments in favour of the new railway are in the
main four, and may be thus answered.
(i.) "There are mineral treasures in the district capable
of development."
Answer. It is a wicked fiction, got up by whosoever
140 ON THE OLD ROAD
has got it up, simply to cheat shareholders. Every lead and
copper vein in Cumberland has been known for centuries ;
the copper of Coniston1 does not pay; and there is none
so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks,
through which the track lies, produce neither slate nor
haematite, while there is enough of them at Llanberis and
Dalton to roof and iron-grate all England into one vast
Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself in need of that
accommodation.
(ii.) " The scenery must be made accessible to the
public."2
Answer. It is more than accessible already; the public
are pitched into it head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-
thirds of it. The Lake scenery really begins, on the south,
at Lancaster, where the Cumberland hills are seen over
Morecambe Bay ; on the north, at Carlisle, where the moors
of Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them
and the Solway. No one who loves mountains would lose
a step of the approach, from these distances, on either side.
But the stupid herds of modern tourists let themselves
be emptied, like coals from a sack, at Windermere and
Keswick. Having got there, what the new railway has to
do is to shovel those who have come to Keswick to Winder-
mere, and to shovel those who have come to Windermere
to Keswick. And what then ?
(iii.) " But cheap and swift transit is necessary for the
working population, who otherwise could not see the scenery
at all."
Answer. After all your shrieking about what the opera-
tives spend in drink, can't you teach them to save enough
out of their year's wages to pay for a chaise and pony for
a day, to drive Missis and the Baby that pleasant twenty
miles, stopping when they like, to unpack the basket on a
mossy bank? If they can't enjoy the scenery that way,
1 [For a mention of the copper mining there, see Fors Clavigera. Letter 46
(Vol. XXVIII. p. 177).]
' [Compare The Art of England, § 208 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 404).]
RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT 141
they can't any way ; and all that your railroad company
can do for them is only to open taverns and skittle grounds
round Grasmere, which will soon, then, be nothing but a
pool of drainage, with a beach of broken gingerbeer bottles ;
and their minds will be no more improved by contemplat-
ing the scenery of such a lake than of Blackpool.
(iv.) What else is to be said ? I protest I can find
nothing, unless that engineers and contractors must live.
Let them live, but in a more useful and honourable way
than by keeping Old Bartholomew Fair under Helvellyn,
and making a steam merry-go-round of the lake country.
There are roads to be mended, where the parish will
not mend them, harbours of refuge needed, where our
deck-loaded ships are in helpless danger; get your commis-
sions and dividends where you know that work is needed,
not where the best you can do is to persuade pleasure-
seekers into giddier idleness.
4. The arguments brought forward by the promoters of
the railway may thus be summarily answered. Of those
urged in the following pamphlet in defence of the country
as it is, I care only myself to direct the reader's attention
to one (see pp. 27, 28 *), the certainty, namely, of the
deterioration of moral character in the inhabitants of every
district penetrated by a railway. Where there is little
moral character to be lost, this argument has small weight.
But the Border peasantry of Scotland and England, painted
with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth (for lead-
ing types out of this exhaustless portraiture, 1 may name
Dandie Dinmont and Michael2), are hitherto a scarcely
injured race, whose strength and virtue yet survive to
represent the body and soul of England before her days
of mechanical decrepitude and commercial dishonour. There
are men working in my own fields who might have fought
with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt without being discerned
1 [Of Mr. Somervell's pamphlet.]
* [For another reference to Dandie Dinmout in this sense, see Sesame and
Liliex, § 59 (Vol. XVIII. p. 115) ; and for Wordsworth's Michael, Vol. IV. p. 393,
and below, p. 341.]
142 ON THE OLD ROAD
from among his knights; I can take my tradesmen's word
for a thousand pounds; my garden gate opens on the latch
to the public road, by day and night, without fear of any
foot entering but my own, and my girl-guests may wander
by road, or moorland, or through every bosky dell of this
wild wood, free as the heather bees or squirrels.
What effect, on the character of such a population,
will be produced by the influx of that of the suburbs of
our manufacturing towns, there is evidence enough, if the
reader cares to ascertain the facts, in every newspaper on
his morning table.
5. And now one final word concerning the proposed
beneficial effect on the minds of those whom you send to
corrupt us.
I have said I take no selfish interest in this resistance
to the railroad. But I do take an unselfish one. It is
precisely because I passionately wish to improve the minds
of the populace, and because I am spending my own mind,
strength, and fortune, wholly on that object, that I don't
want to let them see Helvellyn while they are drunk. I
suppose few men now living have so earnestly felt — none
certainly have so earnestly declared — that the beauty of
nature is the blessedest and most necessary of lessons for
men ; and that all other efforts in education are futile till
you have taught your people to love fields, birds, and
flowers. Come then, my benevolent friends, join with me
in that teaching. I have been at it all my life, and without
pride do solemnly assure you that I know how it is to be
managed. I cannot indeed tell you, in this short preface,
how, completely, to fulfil so glorious a task. But I can
tell you clearly, instantly, and emphatically, in what temper
you must set about it. Here are you, a Christian, a
gentleman, and a trained scholar ; there is your subject of
education — a Godless clown, in helpless ignorance. You
can present no more blessed offering to God than that
human creature, raised into faith, gentleness, and the know-
ledge of the works of his Lord. But observe this — you
RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT 143
must not hope to make so noble an offering to God of
that which doth cost you nothing ! l You must be resolved
to labour, and to lose, yourself, before you can rescue this
overlaboured lost sheep, and offer it alive to its Master.
If then, my benevolent friend, you are prepared to take
OUT your two pence, and to give them to the hosts here
in Cumberland, saying — "Take care of him, and whatsoever
thou spendest more, I will repay thee when I come to
Cumberland myself," on these terms — oh my benevolent
friends, I am with you, hand and glove, in every effort you
wish to make for the enlightenment of poor men's eyes.
But if your motive is, on the contrary, to put two pence
into your own purse, stolen between the Jerusalem and
Jericho of Keswick and Ambleside, out of the poor drunken
traveller's pocket ; — if your real object, in your charitable
offering, is, not even to lend unto the Lord by giving- to
the poor, but to lend unto the Lord by making a divi-
dend out of the poor ; — then, my pious friends, enthusiastic
Ananias, pitiful Judas, and sanctified Korah, I will do my
best, in God's name, to stay your hands, and stop your
tongues.
BRANTWOOD, 22«e? June, 1876.
1 [2 Samuel xxiv. 24. For the following Bible references, see Matthew xviii.
12, 13 ; Luke x. 35 ; and Proverbs xix. 17.]
6
THE THREE COLOURS OF
PRE-RAPHAELITISM
(1878)
[Bibliographical Note. — These two papers appeared as follows : —
(1) Nineteenth. Century, November 1878, vol. iv. pp. 925-931.
(2) Nineteenth Century, December 1878, ibid., pp. 1072-1082.
They were reprinted in On the Old Road, §§ 226-252 ; vol. i. pp. 310-
346, in ed. 1 (1885) ; vol. i. pp. 314-351, in ed. 2 (1899).
The sections are now renumbered. In § 15, line 4, "evil" was mis-
printed " real " in the Nineteenth Century and both editions of On the Old
Road; line 5, the inverted commas have been transferred from "sarco-
phagus kind" to "this kind," the words in brackets being Ruskin's added
explanation of those quoted from Modern Painters. In a reference note
at the end, "Lectures on Art" was misprinted "Lecture on Art" in On the
Old Road.}
THE THREE COLOURS OF
PRE-RAPHAELITISM
, , (1878)
I
1. I WAS lately staying in a country house,1 in which, oppo-
site each other at the sides of the drawing-room window,
were two pictures, belonging to what in the nineteenth cen-
tury must be called old times, namely Rossetti's " Annun-
ciation," and Millais' " Blind Girl " ; 2 while, at the corner of
the chimney-piece in the same room, there was a little
drawing of a Marriage- dance, by Edward Burne-Jones.
And in my bedroom, at one side of my bed, there was a
photograph of the tomb of Ilaria di Caretto at Lucca, and
on the other, an engraving, in long since superannuated
manner, from Raphael's "Transfiguration." Also over the
looking-glass in my bedroom, there was this large illumi-
nated text, fairly well written, but with more vermilion in
it than was needful : " Lord, teach us to pray."
And for many reasons I would fain endeavour to tell
my Oxford pupils some facts which seem to me worth
memory about these six works of art ; which, if they will
reflect upon, being, in the present state of my health, the
best I can do for them in the way of autumn lecturing, it
will be kind to me. And as I cannot speak what I would
1 [That of the late Mr. William Graham, then at Duuira, Perthshire. Ruskin
was there in September 1878: see Vol. XXXIII. p. xxi. Mr. Graham's pictures
were dispersed in 1886, and Rossetti's "Annunciation" (" Ecce Ancilla Domini")
— painted 1849-1850, retouched in 1853 and 1873 — was bought for the National
Gallery (No. 1210).]
* [For other references to this picture, exhibited at the Royal Academy in,
1856, see Vol. XIV. pp. 114 n., 329. A reproduction of the picture (now in the
Birmingham Gallery) is given at vol. i. p. 306 of the Life of Mil/nix by his son.]
XXXIV. 147 K
148 ON THE OLD ROAD
say, and believe my pupils are more likely to read it if
printed in the Nineteenth Century than in a separate pam-
phlet, I have asked, and obtained of the editor, space in
columns which ought, nevertheless, I think, usually to be
occupied with sterner subjects, as the Fates are now driving
the nineteenth century on its missionary path.
2. The first picture I named, Rossetti's "Annunciation,"
was, I believe, among the earliest that drew some public
attention to the so-called " Pre-Raphaelite " school. The
one opposite to it, — Millais' " Blind Girl," is among those
chiefly characteristic of that school in its determined manner.
And the third, though small and unimportant, is no less
characteristic, in its essential qualities, of the mind of the
greatest master whom that school has yet produced.1
I believe most readers will start at the application of
the term " master " to any English painter. For the hope
of the nineteenth century is more and more distinctly every
day, to teach all men how to live without mastership* either
in art or morals (primarily, of course, substituting for the
words of Christ, " Ye say well, for so 1 am," 3 — the probable
emendation, " Ye say ill, for so I am not ") ; and to limit
the idea of magistracy altogether, no less than the functions
of the magistrate, to the suppression of disturbance in the
manufacturing districts.
Nor would I myself use the word " Master " in any
but the most qualified sense, of any "modern painter";
scarcely even of Turner, and not at all, except for con-
venience and as a matter of courtesy, of any workman of
the Pre-Raphaelite school, as yet. In such courtesy, only,
let the masterless reader permit it me.
3. I must endeavour first to give, as well as I can by
description, some general notion of the subjects and treat-
ment of the three pictures.
1 [For a similar estimate of Burne-Jones, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 79 (Vol. XXIX.
p. 159), and Art of England (Vol. XXXIII. pp. 296 teg.)."]
2 [Compare the letter to the Derby School of Art. below, p. 611 ; and Vol. XIX.
p. 129.]
s [John xiii. 13.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 149
Rossetti's "Annunciation" differs from every previous
conception of the scene known to me, in representing the
angel as waking the Virgin from sleep to give her his
message. The Messenger himself also differs from angels
as they are commonly represented, in not depending, for
recognition of his supernatural character, on the insertion
of bird's wings at his shoulders. Tf we are to know him
for an angel at all, it must be by his face, which is that
simply of youthful, but grave, manhood. He is neither
transparent in body, luminous in presence, nor auriferous in
apparel; — wears a plain, long, white robe, — casts a natural
and undiminished shadow, — and, although there are flames
beneath his feet, which upbear him, so that he does not
touch the earth, these are unseen by the Virgin.
She herself is an English, not a Jewish girl, of about
sixteen or seventeen, of such pale and thoughtful beauty
as Rossetti could best imagine for her ; concerning which
effort, and its degree of success, we will inquire farther
presently.1
She has risen half up, not started up, in being awakened ;
and is not looking at the angel, but only thinking, it seems,
with eyes cast down, as if supposing herself in a strange
dream. The morning light fills the room, and shows at
the foot of her little pallet-bed, her embroidery work, left
off the evening before, — an upright lily.
Upright, and very accurately upright, as also the edges
of the piece of cloth in its frame, — as also the gliding form
of the angel, — as also, in severe fore-shortening, that of the
Virgin herself. It has been studied, so far as it has been
studied at all, from a very thin model ; and the disturbed
coverlid is thrown into confused angular folds, which admit
no suggestion whatever of ordinary girlish grace. So that,
to any spectator little inclined towards the praise of barren
" uprightnesse," and accustomed on the contrary to expect
radiance in archangels, and grace in Madonnas, the first
1 [Sec below, §§ 6, 9.]
150 ON THE OLD ROAD
effect of the design must be extremely displeasing, and the
first is perhaps, with most art-amateurs of modern days,
likely to be the last.
4. The background of the second picture (Millais' " Blind
Girl"), is an open English common, skirted by the tidy
houses of a well-to-do village in the cockney rural districts.
I have no doubt the scene is a real one within some twenty
miles from London, and painted mostly on the spot. The
houses are entirely uninteresting, but decent, trim, as human
dwellings should be, and on the whole inoffensive — not
" cottages," mind you, in any sense, but respectable brick-
walled and slated constructions, old-fashioned in the sense
of "old" at, suppose, Bromley or Sevenoaks,1 and with a
pretty little church belonging to them, its window traceries
freshly whitewashed by order of the careful warden.
The common is a fairly spacious bit of ragged pasture,
with a couple of donkeys feeding on it, and a cow or two,
and at the side of the public road passing over it, the blind
girl has sat down to rest awhile. She is a simple beggar,
not a poetical or vicious one ; — being peripatetic with
musical instrument, she will, I suppose, come under the
general term of tramp ; a girl of eighteen or twenty,
extremely plain-featured, but healthy, and just now resting,
as any one of us would rest, not because she is much
tired, but because the sun has but this moment come out
after a shower, and the smell of the grass is pleasant.
The shower has been heavy, and is so still in the
distance, where an intensely bright double rainbow is re-
lieved against the departing thunder-cloud. The freshly
wet grass is all radiant through and through with the new
sunshine; full noon at its purest, the very donkeys bathed
in the raindew, and prismatic with it under their rough
breasts as they graze ; the weeds at the girl's side as bright
as a Byzantine enamel, and inlaid with blue veronica; her
1 [The picture was actually painted at Wiuclielsea (see catalogue of the Graham
sale, p. 14, and Life of Millait, vol. i. p. 238). The church is the old Priory church
of Icklesham.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 151
upturned face all aglow with the light that seeks its way
through her wet eyelashes (wet only with the rain). Very
quiet she is, — so quiet that a radiant butterfly has settled
on her shoulder, and basks there in the warm sun. Against
her knee, on which her poor instrument of musical beggary
rests (harmonium), leans another child, half her age — her
guide ; — indifferent, this one, either to sun or rain, only a
little tired of waiting. No more than a half profile of her
face is seen; and that is quite expressionless, and not the
least pretty.
5. Both of these pictures are oil-paintings. The third,
Mr. Burne- Jones' " Bridal," is a small water-colour drawing,
scarcely more than a sketch ; but full and deep in such
colour as it admits. Any careful readers of my recent
lectures at Oxford know that I entirely ignore the difference
of material between oil and water as diluents of colour,1
when I am examining any grave art question : nor shall I
hereafter, throughout this paper, take notice of it. Nor do
I think it needful to ask the pardon of any of the three
artists for confining the reader's attention at present to com-
paratively minor and elementary examples of their works.
If I can succeed in explaining the principles involved in
them, their application by the reader will be easily extended
to the enjoyment of better examples.
This drawing of Mr. Jones's,2 however, is far less repre-
sentative of his scale of power than either of the two pieces
already described, which have both cost their artists much
care and time; while this little water-colour has been per-
haps done in the course of a summer afternoon. It is
only about seven inches by nine : the figures of the average
size of Angelico's on any altar predella ; and the heads, of
1 [See on this point the Oxford Lectures on Art, § 128 (Vol. XX. p. 119).]
2 [The drawing, which Ruskiu describes from memory and not quite accurately,
is "The King's Wedding" (No. 14 in the Burne-Jones Exhibition at the New
Gallery, 1898). It is in water-colour on vellum (12|x H»A in.), and is thus described
in the Catalogue : " On the right King Rene and his bride, seated under a canopy ;
before them dance six maidens dressed in blue ; on the left, a statue of Cupid
under a canopy ; in the background behind a wall are girls playing instruments
of music. Painted in 1870."]
152 ON THE OLD ROAD
those on an average Corinthian or Syracusan coin. The
bride and bridegroom sit on a slightly raised throne at the
side of the picture, the bride nearest us ; her head seen in
profile, a little bowed. Before them, the three bridesmaids
and their groomsmen dance in circle, holding each other's
hands, barefooted,1 and dressed in long dark blue robes.
Their figures are scarcely detached from the dark back-
ground, which is a wilful mingling of shadow and light, as
the artist chose to put them, representing, as far as I
remember, nothing in particular. The deep tone of the
picture leaves several of the faces in obscurity, and none
are drawn with much care, not even the bride's ; but with
enough to show that her features are at least as beautiful
as those of an ordinary Greek goddess, while the depth
of the distant background throws out her pale head in
an almost lunar, yet unexaggerated, light ; and the white
and blue flowers of her narrow coronal, though merely
white and blue, shine, one knows not how, like gems.
Her bridegroom stoops forward a little to look at her,
so that we see his front face, and can see also that he
loves her.
6. Such being the respective effort and design of the
three pictures, although I put by, for the moment, any
question of their mechanical skill or manner, it must yet, I
believe, be felt by the reader that, as works of young men,
they contained, and even nailed to the Academy gates, a
kind of Lutheran challenge to the then accepted teachers in
all European schools of Art : perhaps a little too shrill and
petulant in the tone of it, but yet curiously resolute and
1 [This was inaccurate, as Ruskin found when Mrs. J. F. Homer (Miss Frances
Graham, the " Francie " of Ruskin's and Burne-Jones's familiar letters) sent him
the drawing for further inspection : —
" Please don't be vexed," wrote Ruskin (Brantwood, November 2, 1878),
"that J remembered that picture inaccurately, and said the bridesmaids
were barefoot. I spent a whole afternoon in Edinburgh Canongate watch-
ing barefoot little dances there, after their manner, and so confused myself,
I suppose. I'm not sure that the picture mightn't be as sweet if it were
BO. But I see, for Francie has lent it me, that it's a stately thing after
all. I'll put it right in the next Paper."
The correction was not, however, made in the next Paper.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 153
steady in its triple Fraternity, as of William of Biirglen
with his Melchthal and Stauffacher, in the Griitli meadow,1
not wholly to be scorned by even the knightliest powers
of the Past.
We have indeed, since these pictures were first exhibited,
become accustomed to many forms both of pleasing and
revolting innovation : but consider, in those early times, how
the pious persons who had always been accustomed to see
their Madonnas dressed in scrupulously folded and ex-
quisitely falling robes of blue, with edges embroidered in
gold, — to find them also, sitting under arcades of exquisitest
architecture by Bernini,2 — and reverently to observe them
receive the angel's message with their hands folded on their
breasts in the most graceful positions, and the missals they
had been previously studying laid open on their knees, (see
my own outline from Angelico of the *' Ancilla Domini,"
the first plate of the fifth volume of Modern Painters 3) ; —
consider, I repeat, the shock to the feelings of all these
delicately minded persons, on being asked to conceive a
Virgin waking from her sleep on a pallet bed, in a plain
room, startled by sudden words and ghostly presence which
she does not comprehend, and casting in her mind what
manner of Salutation this should be,4
7. Again, consider, with respect to the second picture,
how the learned possessors of works of established reputa-
tion by the ancient masters, classically catalogued as "land-
scapes with figures " ; and who held it for eternal, artistic
law that such pictures should either consist of a rock, with
a Spanish chestnut growing out of the side of it, and three
banditti in helmets and big feathers on the top, or else
of a Corinthian temple, built beside an arm of the sea,
1 [See Vol. L p. 161; Vol. VII. p. 113; Vol. XIII. p. 511. Ruskin, however,
here wrongly includes William Tell, of Burglen, among the three Confederates
who swore the famous oath on the Riitli (or Griitli) : they were Walter Fiirst, of
Attinghausen (Uri) ; Arnold, of Melchthal (Underwalden) ; and Werner Stauffacher,
of Steinen (Schwyz).]
* [Compare Ariadne Floreniina, § 184 (Vol. XXII. p. 424).]
* fin this edition, the frontispiece to Vol. VII.]
4 [Luke i. 29.J
154 ON THE OLD ROAD
with the Queen of Sheba beneath, preparing for embarka-
tion to visit Solomon,1 — the whole properly toned down
with amber varnish ; — imagine the first consternation, and
final wrath, of these cognoscenti, at being asked to con-
template, deliberately, and to the last rent of her ragged
gown, and for principal object in a finished picture, a
vagrant who ought at once to have been sent to the
workhouse ; and some really green grass and blue flowers,
as they actually may any day be seen on an English
common-side. ,
And finally, let us imagine, if imagination fail us not, the
far more wide and weighty indignation of the public, accus-
tomed always to see its paintings of marriages elaborated in
Christian propriety and splendour ; with a bishop officiat-
ing, assisted by a dean and an archdeacon ; the modesty
of the bride expressed by a veil of the most expensive
Valenciennes, and the robes of the bridesmaids designed
by the perfectest of Parisian artists, and looped up with
stuffed robins or other such tender rarities; — think with
what sense of hitherto unheard-of impropriety, the British
public must have received a picture of a marriage, in which
the bride was only crowned with flowers, — at which the
bridesmaids danced barefoot, — and in which nothing was
known, or even conjecturable, respecting the bridegroom,
but his love 1
8. Such being the manifestly opponent and agonistic
temper of these three pictures (and admitting, which I will
crave the reader to do for the nonce, their real worth and
power to be considerable), it surely becomes a matter of
no little interest to see what spirit it is that they have in
common, which, recognized as revolutionary in the minds
of the young artists themselves, caused them, with more
or less of firmness, to constitute themselves into a society,
partly monastic, partly predicatory, called " Pre-Raphaelite " :
1 [Compare Raskin's descriptions of Claude and Salvator Rosa, Vol. III. pp. 41,
113, 185; and for the "amber varnish," ibid., p. 45 n.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 155
and also recognized as such, with indignation, by the public,
caused the youthfully didactic society to be regarded with
various degrees of contempt, passing into anger (as of
offended personal dignity), and embittered farther, among
certain classes of persons, even into a kind of instinctive
abhorrence.
9. I believe the reader will discover, on reflection, that
there is really only one quite common and sympathetic
impulse shown in these three works, otherwise so distinct
in aim and execution. And this fraternal link he will, if
careful in reflection, discover to be an effort to represent,
so far as in these youths lay either the choice or the
power, things as they are or were, or may be, instead of,
according to the practice of their instructors and the wishes
of their public, things as they are not, never were, and
never can be : this effort being founded deeply on a con-
viction that it is at first better, and finally more pleasing,
for human minds to contemplate things as they are, than
as they are not.1
Thus, Mr. Rossetti, in this and subsequent works of
the kind, thought it better for himself and his public to
make some effort towards a real notion of what actually
did happen in the carpenter's cottage at Nazareth, giving
rise to the subsequent traditions delivered in the Gospels,
than merely to produce a variety in the pattern of Virgin,
pattern of Virgin's gown, and pattern of Virgin's house,
which had been set by the jewellers of the fifteenth
century.
Similarly, Mr. Millais, in this and other works of the
kind, thought it desirable rather to paint such grass and
foliage as he saw in Kent, Surrey, and other solidly accessible
English counties, than to imitate even the most Elysian
fields enamelled by Claude, or the gloomiest branches of
Hades forest rent by Salvator : and yet more, to manifest
1 [Compare the similar definitions of Pre-Kaphaelitism noted at p. 290 of
Vol. XXXin.]
156 ON THE OLD ROAD
his own strong personal feeling that the humanity, no less
than the herbage, near us and around, was that which
it was the painter's duty first to portray; and that, if
Wordsworth were indeed right in feeling that the meanest
flower that blows can give, — much more, for any kindly
heart it should be true that the meanest tramp that
walks can give— " thoughts that do often lie too deep for
tears."1
10. And if at first — or even always to careless sight —
the third of these pictures seem opposite to the two others
in the very point 'of choice, between what is and what is
not ; insomuch that while they with all their strength avouch
realities, this with simplest confession dwells upon a dream,
— yet in this very separation from them it sums their power
and seals their brotherhood ; reaching beyond them to the
more perfect truth of things, not only that once were, —
not only that now are, — but which are the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever ; 2 — the love by whose ordaining the
world itself, and all that dwell therein, live, and move, and
have their being ; by which the Morning stars rejoice in
their courses — in which the virgins of deathless Israel rejoice
in the dance — and in whose constancy the Giver of light
to stars, and love to men, Himself is glad in the creatures
of His hand, — day by new day proclaiming to His Church
of all the ages, "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy Lord rejoice over thee."
Such, the reader will find, if he cares to learn it, is
indeed the purport and effort of these three designs — so
far as, by youthful hands and in a time of trouble and
rebuke, such effort could be brought to good end. Of their
visible weaknesses, with the best justice I may, — of their
veritable merits with the best insight I may, and of the
farther history of the school which these masters founded,
I hope to be permitted to speak more under the branches
1 [Ode on Intimations qf Immortality, stanza 11.]
2 [For the Bible references in § 10, see Hebrews xiii. 8 ; Psalms xxir. 1 ; Acts
xvii. 28 ; Job xxxviii. 7 ; Jeremiah xxxi. 13 ; Isaiah Ixii. 5.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 157
that do not " remember their green felicity " ; l adding a
corollary or two respecting the other pieces of art above
named * as having taken part in the tenor of my country
hours of idleness.
II
11. The feeling which, in the foregoing notes on the
pictures that entertained my vacation, I endeavoured to
illustrate as dominant over early Pre-Raphaelite work, is
very far from being new in the world. Demonstrations in
support of fact against fancy have been periodical motives
of earthquake and heartquake, under the two rigidly in-
cumbent burdens of drifted tradition, which, throughout
the history of humanity, during phases of languid thought,
cover the vaults of searching fire that must at last try
every man's work, what it is.2
But the movement under present question derived un-
usual force, and in some directions a morbid and mischievous
force, from the vulgarly called t " scientific " modes of
investigation which had destroyed in the minds of the
public it appealed to, all possibility, or even conception, of
reverence for anything, past, present, or future, invisible to
the eyes of a mob, and inexpressible by popular vociferation.
It was indeed, and had long been, too true, as the wisest
* May I in the meantime recommend any reader interested in these
matters to obtain for himself such photographic representation as may be
easily acquirable of the tomb of Ilaria?3 It is in the north transept of the
Cathedral of Lucca ; and is certainly the most beautiful work existing by
the master who wrought it, — Jacopo della Quercia.
f "Vulgarly"; the use of the word "scientia," as if it differed from
" knowledge," being a modern barbarism ; enhanced usually by the assump-
tion that the knowledge of the difference between acids and alkalies is a
more respectable one than that of the difference between vice and virtue.
1 [For another quotation from this song by Keats ("In a drear-nighted Decem-
ber"), see Element* of Englith Prosody, § 29 (Vol. XXXI. p. 353).]
2 [See 1 Corinthians iii. 13 : ' ' The fire shall try every man's work of what sort
it is.'n
> [See Plate 3 in Vol. IV. (p. 122).]
158 ON THE OLD ROAD
of us felt, that the mystery of the domain between things
that are universally visible, and are only occasionally so to
some persons, — no less than the myths or words in which
those who had entered that kingdom related what they
had seen, had become, the one uninviting, and the other
useless, to men dealing with the immediate business of our
day; so that the historian of the last of European kings
might most reasonably mourn that
" the Berlin Galleries, which are made up, like other galleries, of goat-
footed Pan, Europa's Bull, Romulus's She-wolf, and the Coreggiosity of
Coreggio, contain, for instance, no portrait of Friedrich the Great; no
likeness at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of human
realities, or of any part of them, who have sprung not from the idle brains
of dreaming dilettanti, but from the Head of God Almighty, to make this
poor authentic earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little work
that may be eternal there."1
12. But we must surely, in fairness to modernism, re-
member that although no portraits of great Frederick, of
a trustworthy character, may be found at Berlin, portraits
of the English squire, be he great or small, may usually
be seen at his country house. And Edinburgh, as I lately
saw, — if she boasts of no Venetian perfectness of art in
the portraiture of her Bruce or James, her Douglas or
Knox, at Holyrood,2 has at least a charming portrait of a
Scottish beauty in the Attic Institution,3 whose majesty,
together with that of the more extensive glass roofs of the
railway station, and the tall chimney of the gasworks, in-
flates the Caledonian mind, contemplative around the spot
where the last of its minstrels appears to be awaiting eternal
extinction under his special extinguisher;4 — and pronouncing
of all its works and ways that they are very good.5
1 [Carlyle's Friedrich, Book iv. ch. vi. : quoted also in Lectures on Art, §115
(Vol. XX. p. 106), and referred to in Art of England, § 195 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 396).]
2 [The historical portraits in the Palace of Holyrood are in the case of the kings
of Scotland by a Fleming, named James de Witt, who was commissioned to paint
the pictures in 1684. For the spurious portrait of Knox there, see Carlyle's Portraits
of John Knox (Index volume, p. 120 in the cheap uniform edition of his works).]
* [The " charming portrait of a Scottish beauty " is, no doubt, Gainsborough's
"Mrs. Graham" in the Scottish National Gallery : see Vol. XXXIII. p. 311.]
4 [On the Scott monument, compare Vol. I. pp. xxxvii., 247, 264.]
6 [Genesis i. 31.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 159
And are there not also sufficiently resembling portraits
of all the mouthpieces of constituents in British Parliament
— as their vocal powers advance them into that worship-
ful society — presented to the people, with due felicitation
on the new pipe it has got to its organ, in the Illustrated
or other graphic News ? Surely, therefore, it cannot be
portraiture of merely human greatness of mind that we are
any way short of; but another manner of greatness alto-
gether ? And may we not regret that as great Frederick
is dead, so also great Pan is dead,1 and only the goat-footed
Pan, or rather the goat's feet of him without the Pan, left
for portraiture ?
13. I chanced to walk, to-day, 9th of November, through
the gallery of the Liverpool Museum, in which the good
zeal and sense of Mr. Gatty have already, in beautiful
order, arranged the Egyptian antiquities, but have not yet
prevailed far enough to group, in like manner, the scattered
Byzantine and Italian ivories above. Out of which collec-
tion, every way valuable, two primarily important pieces,
it seems to me, may be recommended for accurate juxta-
position, bringing then for us into briefest compass an
extensive story of the Arts of Mankind.2
The first is an image of St. John the Baptist, carved
in the eleventh century ; being then conceived by the
image-maker as decently covered by his raiment of camel's
hair ; bearing a gentle aspect, because the herald of a gentle
Lord ; and pointing to his quite legibly written message
concerning the Lamb which is that gentle Lord's heraldic
symbol.
The other carving is also of St. John the Baptist,
Italian work of the sixteenth century. He is represented
1 [The words (which are the refrain in Mrs. Browning's poem The Dead Pan) are
given by Plutarch (De Oraculorum Defectu) as announced by a flying voice to a
sailor " about the isles Echiuades."]
* [See now the following illustrated Catalogue: Liverpool Free Public Museum.
Catalogue of Mediaeval and Later Antiquities contained in the Mayer Museum, by
Charles T. Gatty, F.S.A., Curator: Liverpool, 1883. The first ivory is No. 28 and
Plate VI. iii the Catalogue, p. 14 (where Mr. Gatty quotes Iluskiu's description) ;
the second is No. 79 (p. 25). For the Egyptian antiquities in the same collection,
see Catalogue of the Mayer Collection, Part L, by the same author, 1879.]
160 ON THE OLD ROAD
thereby as bearing no aspect, for he is without his head ; —
wearing no camel's hair, for he is without his raiment; —
and indicative of no message, for he has none to bring.
14. Now if these two carvings are ever put in due
relative position, they will constitute a precise and perma-
nent art-lecture to the museum- visitants of Liverpool-burg;
exhibiting to them instantly, and in sum, the conditions
of the change in the aims of art which, beginning in
the thirteenth century under Niccolo Pisano, consummated
itself three hundred years afterwards in Raphael and his
scholars. Niccolo, first among Italians, thought mainly in
carving the Crucifixion, not how heavy Christ's head was
when He bowed it; — but how heavy His body was when
people came to take it down.1 And the apotheosis of flesh,
or, in modern scientific terms, the molecular development
of flesh, went steadily on, until at last, as we see in the
instance before us, it became really of small consequence
to the artists of the Renaissance incarnadine, whether a
man had his head on or not. so only that his legs were
handsome : and the decapitation, whether of St. John or
St. Cecilia ; the massacre of any quantity of Innocents ; the
flaying, whether of Marsyas or St. Bartholomew, and the
deaths, it might be of Laocoon by his vipers, it might be
of Adonis by his pig, or it might be of Christ by His
people, became, one and all, simply subjects for analysis of
muscular mortification ; and the vast body of artists accu-
rately, therefore, little more than a chirurgically useless sect
of medical students.
Of course there were many reactionary tendencies among
the men who had been trained in the pure Tuscan schools,
which partly concealed, or adorned, the materialism of their
advance ; and Raphael himself, after profoundly studying
the arabesques of Pompeii and of the palace of the Caesars,
beguiled the tedium, and illustrated the spirituality of the
converse of Moses and Elias with Christ concerning His
1 [See The Schools of Art in Florence, §S 50 sea. (Vol. XXIII. pp. 225 se^ and
Plate XVIII.).]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 161
decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem,1 by
placing them, above the Mount of Transfiguration, in the
attitudes of two humming-birds on the top of a honey-
suckle.2
15. But the best of these ornamental arrangements were
insufficient to sustain the vivacity, while they conclusively
undermined the sincerity, of the Christian faith, and " the
evil consequences of the acceptance of this kind" (Roman
Bath and Sarcophagus kind) of religious idealism were
instant and manifold : * —
" So far as it was received and trusted in by thoughtful persons, it
only served to chill all the conceptions of sacred history which they might
otherwise have obtained. Whatever they could have fancied for themselves
about the wild, strange, infinitely stern, infinitely tender, infinitely varied
veracities of the life of Christ, was blotted out by the vapid fineries of
Raphael: the rough Galilean pilot, the orderly custom receiver, and all the
questioning wonder and fire of uneducated apostleship, were obscured
under an antique mask of philosophical faces and long robes. The feeble,
subtle, suffering, ceaseless energy and humiliation of St. Paul were con-
fused with an idea of a meditative Hercules leaning on a sweeping sword ;
and the mighty presences of Moses and Elias were softened by introduc-
tions of delicate grace, adopted from dancing nymphs and rising Auroras.
" Now no vigorously minded religious person could possibly receive
pleasure or help from such art as this ; and the necessary result was the
instant rejection of it by the healthy religion of the world. Raphael
ministered, with applause, to the impious luxury of the Vatican, but was
trampled under foot at once by every believing and advancing Christian
of his own and subsequent times ; and thenceforward pure Christianity and
' high art ' took separate roads, and fared on, as best they might, indepen-
dently of each other.
" But although Calvin, and Knox, and Luther, and their flocks, with all
the hardest-headed and truest-hearted faithful left in Christendom, thus
spurned away the spurious art, and all art with it (not without harm to
themselves, such as a man must needs sustain in cutting off a decayed
limb), certain conditions of weaker Christianity suffered the false system
* Modern Painters, vol. iii. p. 55. 8 I proceed in my old words, of which
I cannot better the substance, though — with all deference to the taste of
those who call that book my best — I could, the expression.
1 [Luke ix. 31.]
3 [Compare what Ruskin says of the " kicking gracefulnesses " of the picture
in Vol. V. pp. 82-83 n. ; see for a more appreciative account of it, Vol. XXIII.
p. 254.1
3 [The reference is to the first edition (pt iv. ch. iv. § 17) : see now Vol. V.
pp. 82 seq.]
162 ON THE OLD ROAD
to retain influence over them ; and to this day the clear and tasteless
poison of the art of Raphael infects with sleep of infidelity the hearts of
millions of Christians. It is the first cause of all that pre-eminent dulness
which characterises what Protestants call sacred art; a dulness not merely
baneful in making religion distasteful to the young, but in sickening, as
we have seen, all vital belief of religion in the old. A dim sense of
impossibility attaches itself always to the graceful emptiness of the repre-
sentation ; we feel instinctively that the painted Christ and painted apostle
are not beings that ever did or could exist ; and this fatal sense of fair
fabulousness, and well-composed impossibility, steals gradually from the
picture into the history, until we find ourselves reading St. Mark or St.
Luke with the same admiring, but uninterested, incredulity, with which
we contemplate Raphael."
16. Without claiming, — nay, so far as my knowledge
can reach, utterly disclaiming — any personal influence over,
or any originality of suggestion to, the men who founded
our presently realistic schools,1 I may yet be permitted to
point out the sympathy which I had as an outstanding
spectator with their effort ; and the more or less active
fellowship with it, which, unrecognized, I had held from
the beginning. The passage I have just quoted (with many
others enforcing similar truths) is in the third volume of
Modern Painters ;2 but if the reader can refer to the close
of the preface to the second edition * of the first, he will
find this very principle of realism asserted for the ground-
work of all I had to teach in that volume.3 The lesson
so far pleased the public of that day, that ever since, they
have refused to listen to any corollaries or conclusions
from it, assuring me, year by year, continually, that the
older I grew, the less I knew, and the worse I wrote.
Nevertheless, that first volume of Modern Painters did by
no means contain all that even then I knew ; and in the
third, nominally treating of "Many Things," will be found
* The third edition was published in 1846, while the Pre-Raphaelite
School was still in swaddling clothes.
1 [Compare Ruskin's Preface to a Millais Catalogue in 1886: Vol. XIV.
p. 495. See also Vol. XII. pp. xliii. seq.]
a [Which was published in 1856.1
3 [See now Vol. III. p. 52 ; the second edition is dated 1843. Compare
Vol. XXXII. p. 127.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAEL1TISM 163
the full expression of what I knew best ; namely, that all
"things," many or few, which we ought to paint, must be
first distinguished boldly from the nothings which we ought
not ; and that a faithful realist, before he could question
whether his art was representing anything truly, had first
to ask whether it meant seriously to represent anything
at all!1
17. And such definition has in these days become more
needful than ever before, in this solid, or spectral — which-
ever the reader pleases to consider it — world of ours. For
some of us, who have no perception but of solidity, are
agreed to consider all that is not solid, or weighably liquid,
nothing. And others of us, who have also perception of
the spectral, are sometimes too much inclined to call what
is no more than solid, or weighably liquid, nothing. But
the general reader may be at least assured that it is not
at all possible for the student to enter into useful discus-
sion concerning the qualities of art which takes on itself to
represent things as they are, unless he include in its sub-
jects the spectral, no less than the substantial, reality ; and
understand what difference must be between the powers of
veritable representation, for the men whose models are of
ponderable flesh, as for instance, the *' Sculptor's Model,"
lately under debate in Liverpool,2 — and the men whose
models pause perhaps only for an instant — painted on the
immeasurable air, — forms which they themselves can but
discern darkly, and remember uncertainly, saying : " A
vision passed before me, but I could not discern the form
thereof."3
18. And the most curious, yet the most common, defi-
ciency in the modern contemplative mind, is its inability to
comprehend that these phenomena of true imagination are
1 [See, e.g., Vol. V. pp. 60, 61.]
* [A life-size study of a nude model by Alma-Tadema ; an essay by the artist
at a reconstruction of the Esquiline Venus discovered in 1874. The picture was
at the Academy in 1878 (No. 255), and went afterwards to Liverpool, where it
was the subject of discussion in the press, on the score of its nudity.]
3 [Job iv. 15, 16.]
XXXIV. L
164 ON THE OLD ROAD
yet no less real, and often more vivid than phenomena of
matter. We continually hear artists blamed or praised for
having painted this or that (either of material or spectral
kind), without the slightest implied inquiry whether they
saw this, or that. Whereas the quite primal difference
between the first and second order of artists, is that the
first is indeed painting what he has seen; and the second
only what he would like to see ! But as the one that can
paint what he would like, has therefore the power, if he
chooses, of painting more or less what also his public likes, he
has a chance of being received with sympathetic applause,
on all hands, while the first, it may be, meets only reproach
for not having painted something more agreeable. Thus
Mr. Millais, going out at Tunbridge or Sevenoaks, sees a
blind vagrant led by an ugly child ; and paints that highly
objectionable group, as they appeared to him. But your
pliably minded painter gives you a beautiful young lady
guiding a sightless Belisarius1 (see the gift by one of our
most tasteful modistes to our National Gallery), and the
gratified public never troubles itself to ask whether these
ethereal mendicants were ever indeed apparent in this world,
or any other. Much more, if, in deeper vistas of his imagi-
nation, some presently graphic Zechariah paint — (let us say)
four carpenters,2 the public will most likely declare that he
ought to have painted persons in a higher class of life,
without ever inquiring whether the Lord had shown him
four carpenters or not. And the worst of the business is
that the public impatience, in such sort, is not wholly
unreasonable. For truly, a painter who has eyes can, for
the most part, see what he " likes " with them ; and is, by
divine law, answerable for his liking. And, even at this
late hour of the day, it is still conceivable that such of
them as would verily prefer to see, suppose, instead of a
1 [The reference is to No. 600, bequeathed in 1859 by Miss Jane Clarke, court
milliner and dressmaker, of 170 Regent Street. The picture is by John Laurens
Dyckmans (1811-1888), and is called merely "The Blind Beggar." Ruskin connects
with it the legend of the beggary of Belisarius at the end of his life.]
* [Zechariah i. 20: "And the Lord showed me four carpenters."]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 165
tramp with a harmonium, Orpheus with his lute,1 or Arion
on his dolphin, pleased Proteus rising beside him from the
sea, — might, standing on the " pleasant lea " 2 of Margate or
Brighton, have sight of those personages.
Orpheus with his lute, — Jubal with his harp and horn, —
Harmonia, bride of the warrior seed-sower, — Musica herself,
lady of all timely thought and sweetly ordered things, —
Cantatrice and Incantatrice to all but the museless adder ; 3
these the Amphion of Fe'sole saw, as he shaped the marble
of his tower;4 these, Memmi of Siena, fair-figured on the
shadows of his vault ; — but for us, here is the only mani-
festation granted to our best practical painter — a vagrant
with harmonium — and yonder blackbirds and iridescent jack-
asses, to be harmonised thereby.
19. Our best painter (among the living) I say; — no
question has ever been of that. Since Van Eyck and
Diirer there has nothing been seen so well done in laying
of clear oil-colour within definite line. And what he might
have painted for us, if we had only known what we would
have of him ! Heaven only knows. But we none of us
knew, — nor he neither; and on the whole the perfectest of
his works, and the representative picture of that generation
— was no Annunciate Maria bowing herself; but only a
Newsless Mariana stretching herself:5 which is indeed the
1 \Henry VIII., Act iii. sc. 1.]
1 [Wordsworth (" The World is too much with us ") : —
"Great God ! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."]
1 [Psalms Iviii. 4.]
4 [See Plates XL1V. (Jubal), XLIX. (Harmony, and Orpheus as the symbol of
Music1, in Vol. XXIII. for the bas-reliefs on Giotto's Tower ; and for the descriptions
of them, Mornings in Florence, §§ 133, 145 (ibid., pp. 424, 434-435). For the myths
of Orpheus, see The Tortoise of ^figina, Vol. XX. p. 389 ; of Harmonia and Amphion,
The Story of Arachne, t'Mrf., p. 379. For "Music" in the Spanish Chapel (Memmi)
at Florence, see Vol. XXIII. pp. 392-393. For Arion and his dolphin, sculptured
on the Ducal Palace, see Vol. X. p. 393.]
6 [For other references to Millais's " Mariana in the Moated Grange." see
! Vol. XIV. pp. 107, 496.]
166 ON THE OLD ROAD
best symbol of the mud-moated Nineteenth century ; in its
Grange, Stable — Stye, or whatever name of dwelling may
best befit the things it calls Houses and Cities : imprisoned
therein by the unassailablest of walls, and blackest of ditches
— by the pride of Babel, and the filthiness of Aholah and
Aholibamah ; l and their worse younger sister ; — craving for
any manner of News from any world — and getting none
trustworthy even of its own.
20. I said that in this second paper I would try to
give some brief history of the rise, and the issue, of that
Pre-Raphaelite school: but, as I look over two of the
essays2 that were printed with mine in that last number of
the Nineteenth Century — the first — in laud of the Science
which accepts for practical spirits, inside of men, only
Avarice and Indolence ; and the other, — in laud of the
Science which "rejects the Worker" outside of Men, I am
less and less confident in offering to the readers of the
Nineteenth Century any History relating to such despised
things as unavaricious industry, — or incorporeal vision. I
will be as brief as I can.
21. The central branch of the school, represented by
the central picture above described : — " The Blind Girl " —
was essentially and vitally an uneducated one. It was
headed, in literary power, by Wordsworth ; but the first
pure example of its mind and manner of Art, as opposed
1 [Ruskin, quoting from memory, here makes one of his very few Bible slips —
writing " Aholibamah " (the wife of Esau, Genesis xxxvi. 2) for "Aholibah," the
sister of Aholah (Ezekiel xxiii.). See especially verse 4, "Thus were their names,
Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah," to which Ruskin adds London as "their
worse younger sister." In one of his Bibles, Ruskiu noted against Isaiah xxiv. :
"The burden of London" (see W. G. Collingwood, Ruskin Relics, p. 210).]
* [These essays were " Recent Attacks on Political Economy," by Robert Lowe,
and "Virchow and Evolution," by Prof. Tyndall. Lowe's article was a reply to
Dr. Ingram's attack (at the British Association in 1878) upon the old abstract
political economy. In the course of it Lowe says : " There is nothing surprising
in the evidence which political economy affords of the absolute supremacy of the
desire of wealth and aversion from labour on which the whole science is based.
Experience shows that, in order to solve the question on which the science turns,
all that was wanted was the knowledge that the ruling passions of mankind were
wealth and ease" (p. 864). For Ruskin's particular antipathy to Lowe's views, see
Vol. XXII. p. 367, and Vol. XXIX. p. 207. Tyndall, in the course of his article,
says: "Science rejects the outside builder" (p. 817).]
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THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 167
to the erudite and artificial schools, will be found, so far
as I know, in Moliere's song : faime mieux ma mie.1
Its mental power consisted in discerning what was lovely
in present nature, and in pure moral emotion concerning it.
Its physical power, in an intense veracity of direct
realization to the eye.
So far as Mr. Millais saw what was beautiful in vagrants,
or commons, or crows, or donkeys,2 or the straw under
children's feet in the Ark (Noah's or anybody else's does
not matter), — in the Huguenot and his mistress, or the ivy
behind them, — in the face of Ophelia, or in the flowers float-
ing over it as it sank ; — much more, so far as he saw what
instantly comprehensible nobleness of passion might be in
the binding of a handkerchief, — in the utterance of two words,
" Trust me " or the like : he prevailed, and rightly prevailed,
over all prejudice and opposition; to that extent he will in
what he has done, or may yet do, take, as a standard-bearer,
an honourable place among the reformers of our day.
So far as he could not see what was beautiful, but what
was essentially and for ever common (in that God had not
cleansed it3), and so far as he did not see truly what he
thought he saw ; (as for instance, in this picture, under
immediate consideration, when he paints the spark of light
in a crow's eye a hundred yards off, as if he were only
painting a miniature of a crow close by,) — he failed of his
purpose and hope ; but how far, I have neither the power
nor the disposition to consider.4
22. The school represented by Mr. Rossetti's picture
and adopted for his own by Mr. Holman Hunt, professed,
necessarily, to be a learned one; and to represent things
which had happened long ago, in a manner credible to any
1 [See Modern Paintert, vol. iii., where also Raskin instances this song from
Le Mitanthrope (Vol. V. p. 375).]
1 [The references here are, first, to "The Blind Girl," already described ; then
to "The Dove returning to the Ark" (compare Vol. XIV. p. 165) ; the " Huguenot"
(1852), Vol. XIV. p. 281 ; "Ophelia" (1852), ibid., pp. 107, 214; and "Trust me"
(1862).]
1 [See Acts x. 15.]
4 This passage was quoted in a catalogue of Millais's pictures in 1886, and Kuskin
then appended a note in praise of the artist's animal-painting : see Vol. XIV. p. 496.]
168 ON THE OLD ROAD
moderns who were interested in them. The value to us of
such a school necessarily depends on the things it chooses
to represent, out of the infinite history of mankind. For
instance, David, of the first Republican Academe, was a
true master of this school ; and, painting the Horatii receiv-
ing their swords,1 foretold the triumph of that Republican
Power. Ge'rome, of the latest Republican Academe, paints
the dying Polichinelle, and the morituri gladiators : fore-
telling, in like manner, the shame and virtual ruin of
modern Republicanism. What our own painters have done
for us in this kind has been too unworthy of their real
powers, for Mr. Rossetti threw more than half his strength
into literature, and, .in that precise measure, left himself
unequal to his appointed task in painting ; while Mr. Hunt,
not knowing the necessity of masters any more than the
rest of our painters, and attaching too great importance to
the externals of the life of Christ, separated himself for
long years from all discipline by the recognized laws of his
art; and fell into errors which wofully shortened his hand
and discredited his cause — into which again I hold it no
part of my duty to enter.2 But such works as either of
these painters have done, without antagonism or ostenta-
tion, and in their own true instincts; as all Rossetti's
drawing from the life of Christ, more especially that of the
Madonna gathering the bitter herbs for the Passover when
He was twelve years old ; 3 and that of the Magdalen leav-
ing her companions to come to Him ; 4 these, together with
all the mythic scenes which he painted from the Vita
Nuova and Paradiso of Dante, are of quite imperishable
power and value: as also many of the poems to which he
1 [For another reference to this picture in the Louvre by J. L. David (1748-1825),
see Vol. I. p. 278 (with which passage compare, however, Vol. IV. p. 382, and
Vol. XII. p. 202). For similar criticisms of pictures by Gerome (1824-1904), see
Vol. XV. p. 497 n., and Vol. XXVII. p. 658.]
* [Kuskin preferred to point out the painter's strength and genius : see the
lecture of 1883 in Vol. XXXIII. pp. 270-272, 277-278.]
3 [Compare Art of England, §§ 5, 31, where the drawing is reproduced :
Vol. XXXIII. p. 288, Plate XXXIV.]
* [This is the design (often referred to in Ruskin's letters to Rossetti) of " Mary
Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee." The artist's own description of it
may be read at pp. 96-97 of H. C. Marillier's Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1899).]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAEHTISM 169
gave up part of his painter's strength.1 Of Holman Hunt's
"Light of the World," and "Awakening Conscience,"2 I
have publicly spoken and written, now for many years, as
standard in their kind : the study of sunset on the Egean,
lately placed by me in the schools of Oxford,3 is not less
authoritative in landscape, so far as its aim extends.
23. But the School represented by the third painting,
" The Bridal," is that into which the greatest masters of
all ages are gathered, and in which they are walled round
as in Elysian fields, unapproachable but by the reverent
and loving souls, in some sort already among the Dead.
They interpret to those of us who can read them, so far
as they already see and know, the things that are for ever.
" Charity never faileth ; but whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail — tongues, they shall cease — knowledge, it
shall vanish."4
And the one message they bear to us is the command-
ment of the Eternal Charity. " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, and thy neighbour as thy-
self." As thyself — no more, even the dearest of neighbours.
"Therefore let every man see that he love his wife even
as himself."
No more — else she has become an idol, not a fellow-
servant ; a creature between us and our Master.
And they teach us that what higher creatures exist
between Him and us, we are also bound to know, and to
love in their place and state, as they ascend and descend
on the stairs of their watch and ward.5
1 [For Ruskin's estimate of Rossetti's poems, see (in a later volume of this
edition) his Letters to the poet-painter.]
J [See Vol. XII. pp. 328, 333.1
3 [This drawing (" Sunset at Chimalditi ") was lent by Ruskin to the Exhibition
of Holman Hunt's works at the Fine Art Society's Rooms in 1886 (No. 21 in the
Catalogue). To the artist, who had not seen the study for many years, and had
forgotten everything (as he said to Ruskin) but "the crimson glow eating into
the sun and the plain," the study gave pleasure as being different from anything
else ever done by him. The drawing was only on temporary loan to Oxford, and
is now at Brantwood.]
* [1 Corinthians xiii. 8 ; for the next references, see Matthew xxii. 37-39 ;
Ephesians v. 33.]
5 [See Spenser, Faerie Queene, ii. 8, 2 ; quoted in Vol. XIV. p. 163, and
Vol. XXII. p. 503.]
172 ON THE OLD ROAD
Art of Man with his fate, and his passions. Evermore
lovely and right.1 These two virtues of visible things go
always hand in hand : but the workman is bound to assure
himself of his Rightness first ; then the loveliness will come.
And primarily, from this sculpture, you are to learn
what a " Master " is. Here was one man at least who
knew his business, once upon a time ! Unaccusably ;—
none of your fool's heads or clown's hearts can find a fault
here! "Dog-fancier,* cobbler, tailor, or churl, look here" —
says Master Jacopo — " look ! I know what a brute is, better
than you ; I know what a silken tassel is — what a leathern
belt is — Also, what a woman is ; and also — what a Law of
God is, if you care to know." This it is, to be a Master.
Then secondly — you are to note that with all the cer-
tain Tightness of its material fact, this sculpture still is the
Sculpture of a Dream. Ilaria is dressed as she was in life.
But she never lay so on her pillow ! nor so, in her grave.
Those straight folds, straightly laid as a snowdrift, are im-
possible ; known by the Master to be so — chiselled with a
hand as steady as an iron beam, and as true as a ray of
light — in defiance of your law of Gravity to the Earth.
That law prevailed on her shroud, and prevails on her
dust : but not on herself, nor on the Vision of her.
Then thirdly, and lastly. You are to learn that the
doing of a piece of Art such as this is possible to the
hand of Man just in the measure of his obedience to the
laws which are indeed over his heart, and not over his
dust: primarily, as I have said, to that great one, "Thou
shalt Love the Lord *hy God."2 Which command is
straight and clear; and all men may obey it if they will, —
so only that they be early taught to know Him.
And that is precisely the piece of exact Science which
* I foolishly, in Modern Painters, used the generic word " hound " to
make my sentence prettier.3 He is a flat-nosed bulldog.
1 [An axiom early enforced by Ruskin : see Vol. III. p. 138 ; and compare
Eagle's Nest, § 146 (Vol. XXII. p. 220).]
1 [Matthew xxii. 37.]
s [See Vol. IV. p. 123.]
THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM 173
is not taught at present in our Board Schools — so that
although my friend, with whom I was staying, was not
himself, in the modern sense, ill-educated ; neither did he
conceive me to be so, — he yet thought it good for himself
and me to have that Inscription, " Lord, teach us to Pray,"
illuminated on the house wall1 — if perchance either he or I
could yet leam what John (when he still had his head)
taught his Disciples.2
26. But alas, for us only at last, among the people of
all ages and in all climes, the lesson has become too diffi-
cult ; and the Father of all, in every age, in every clime
adored, is Rejected3 of science, as an Outside Worker,4 in
Cockney dom of the nineteenth century.
Rejected of Science : well ; but not yet — not yet — by
the men who can do, as well as know. And though I
have neither strength nor time, nor at present the mind,
to go into any review of the work done by the third and
chief School of our younger painters, headed by Burne-
Jones ; * and though I know its faults, palpable enough,
* It would be utterly vain to attempt any general account of the works
of this painter,5 unless I were able also to give abstract of the subtlest
mythologies of Greek worship and Christian Romance. Besides, many of
his best designs are pale pencil drawings like Florentine engravings, of
which the delicacy is literally invisible, and the manner irksome, to a public
trained among the black scrabblings of modern wood-cutter's and etcher's
prints. I will only say that the single series of these pencil-drawings,
from the story of Psyche, which I have been able to place in the schools
of Oxford, together with the two coloured beginnings from the stories of
Jason and Alcestis,6 are, in my estimate, quite the most precious gift, not
excepting even the Loire series of Turners,7 in the ratified acceptance of
which my University has honoured with some fixed memorial the aims of
her first Art-Teacher.
1 [See above, p. 147.]
* ^Luke xi. 1 ; and see Matthew xiv. 10.]
* |See Isaiah liii. 3.]
4 'See above, p. 166.]
s See, however, Art of England (Vol. XXXIII. pp. 296-305).]
* [The Psyche drawings are Nos. 64-72 and 223 in the Educational Series
(Vol. XXI. pp. 81, 95, 140) ; one of them is shown ou Plate XII. in Vol. XXII.
(p. 64). The drawing of "Love and Alcestis" is also at Oxford (Vol. XXI.
p. 300) ; it is shown on Plate VI. in Vol. XIX. (p. 207). The drawing of " The Wives
of Jason," at Oxford (Vol. XXI. p. 300), is on Plate VII. in Vol. XIX. (p. 208).]
7 [See Vol. XIII. p. 559.]
174 ON THE OLD ROAD
like those of Turner, to the poorest sight; and though I
am discouraged in all its discouragements, I still hold in
fulness to the hope of it in which I wrote the close of
the third lecture I ever gave in Oxford — of which I will
ask the reader here in conclusion to weigh the words, set
down in the days of my best strength, so far as I know ;
and with the uttermost care given to that inaugural Oxford
work, to " speak only that which I did know." l
27. " Think of it, and you will find that so far from art being immoral,
little else except art is moral ; — that life without industry is guilt, and in-
dustry without art is brutality : and for the words ' good,' and ' wicked,'
used of men, you may almost substitute the words ' Makers ' or ' Destroyers.'
" Far the greater part of the seeming prosperity of the world is, so
far as our present knowledge extends, vain : wholly useless for any kind
of good, but having assigned to it a certain inevitable sequence of destruc-
tion and of sorrow.
" Its stress is only the stress of wandering storm ; its beauty the hectic
of plague : and what is called the history of mankind is too often the
record of the whirlwind, and the map of the spreading of the leprosy.
But underneath all that, or in narrow spaces of dominion in the midst of
it, the work of every man, ' qui non accepit in vanitatem animam suam,'
endures and prospers ; a small remnant or green bud of it prevailing at last
over evil. And though faint with sickness, and encumbered in ruin, the
true workers redeem inch by inch the wilderness into garden ground, by
the help of their joined hands the order of all things is surely sustained
and vitally expanded ; and although with strange vacillation, in the eyes
of the watcher, the morning cometh, and also the night, there is no hour
of human existence that does not draw on towards the perfect day.
" And perfect the day shall be, when it is of all men understood that
the beauty of Holiness must be in labour as well as in rest. Nay ! more,
if it may be, in labour ; in our strength, rather than in our weakness ;
and in the choice of what we shall work for through the six days, and
may know to be good at their evening time, than in the choice of what
we pray for on the seventh, of reward or repose. With the multitude
that keep holiday, we may perhaps sometimes vainly have gone up to the
house of the Lord, and vainly there asked for what we fancied would be
mercy ; but for the few who labour as their Lord would have them, the
mercy needs no seeking, and their wide home no hallowing. Surely good-
ness and mercy shall follow them, all the days of their life, and they
shall dwell in the house of the Lord — For Ever."2
1 [See John iii. 11.]
» [Lectures on Art, §§ 95-96 (Vol. XX. pp. 93, 94). The word "except" (in
liue 2 of the extract here) was not italicised in Lectures on Art.
7
LETTERS TO THE CLERGY
ON THE
LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH
(1879-1880)
LETTERS
ADDRESSED BY
PROFESSOR RUSKIN, D.C.L.,
TO THE CLERGY
ON THE LORD'S PRAYER AND
THE CHURCH.
EDITED BY
REV. F. A. MALLESON, M.A.,
VICAR OK BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS.
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY.
[1879]
[Bibliographical Note. — The Letters to the Rev. F. A. Malleson form one of
the most complicated and tiresome chapters in the Bibliography of Ruskin.
In all, 64 of such Letters have been printed in one or other (or in several,
and — in the case of a few Letters — in all) of seven different publications :
namely, (1) a privately-printed pamphlet; (2) the Contemporary Review;
(3) and (4) a collected volume, of which there were two editions ; (5) On
the Old Road ; (6) a revised and (so far as Ruskin's letters are concerned)
enlarged edition of the collected volume ; and (7) a privately-printed
volume.
The Letters may be divided into three categories : (i.) the Principal
Letters, eleven in number, on The Lord's Prayer and the Church ; (ii.)
minor Letters referring to the publication of the same; and (Hi.) Letters
on other subjects.
Of the seven publications described below, Nos. 1 and 2 contain Letters
(i.) only ; Nos. 3, 4, and 5 contain Letters (i.) and several of Letters (ii.) ;
Nos. 6 and 7 contain Letters (i.), several more of Letters (ii.), and Letters
(iii.) ; but No. 6 contains, in categories (ii.) and (iii.)j several Letters which
are not in No. 7, while No. 7 contains some which are not in No. 6.
In this Note, it is proposed to give, first, the usual particulars of the
seven publications ; secondly, a synopsis of the sixty-four Letters, showing
(a) in which of the several publications they are included, and (b) where
they will severally be found in the present edition ; and, thirdly, a colla-
tion of the text.
The circumstances in which the Principal Letters came to be written
and printed are explained in the Introduction (above, p. xxxii.).
"LETTERS TO THE CLERGY"
1. First Edition (October 1879). — This was printed for private circulation
only, and the pamphlet is rare.1 The title-page is as shown here on p. 177.
Crown 8vo, pp. 39. Title-page (with blank reverse), pp. 1-2. " Ex-
planatory Notice " by Mr. Malleson, dated " October 1879 " (with blank
reverse), pp. 3-4, as follows : —
' ' The following Letters, read before certain clerical societies, are now printed
for convenience of consultation. At the first reading of them in MS. before the
Furness Clerical Society, it was felt that the matter presented for their con-
sideration was so full and so varied that it was impossible to discuss these subjects
fairly and profitably. It was therefore proposed by a member who very kindly
undertook to defray the expense, to have the Letters printed, and a copy sent
to each member. The clergy receiving them are requested, if they feel disposed,
kindly to send to the Editor the expression of their thoughts, in writing, upon
any part or parts of them. TLese remarks will be embodied, without the names
of the writers (unless desired to the contrary), in a treatise or essay by the Editor,
who will use his best discretion so that the ideas thus entrusted to him shall be
treated in the most impartial spirit and most representative manner in his power."
Introduction, pp. 6-7, as follows : —
' * The first reading of the Letters was prefaced with the following remarks : —
' ' A few words by way of introduction will be absolutely necessary before I pro-
ceed to read Mr. Ruskin's letters. They originated simply in a proposal of mine,
1 "Canon Rawnsley kindly offered to print them at his own expense ; only as many
were printed as would be sufficient for three or four clerical societies" (F. A. M., at
p. 250 n. of ed. 6).
XXXIV. 179 M
180 ON THE OLD ROAD
which met with so ready and willing a response, that it almost seemed like a
simultaneous thought. They are addressed nominally to myself, as representing
the body of clergy whose secretary I have the honour to be ; they are, in fact,
therefore addressed to this Society primarily. But in the course of the next
month or two they will also be read to two other Clerical Societies, — the Ormskirk
and the Brighton (junior), — who have acceded to my proposals with much kind-
ness, and in the first case have invited me of their own accord. I have under-
taken, to the best of my ability, to arrange and set down the various expressions
of opinion, which will 'be freely uttered. In so limited a time, many who may
have much to say that would be really valuable will find no time to-day to
deliver it. Of these brethren, I beg that they will do me the favour to express
their views at their leisure, in writing. The original letters, the discussions,
the letters which may be suggested, and a few comments of the Editor's, will
be published in a volume which will appear, I trust, in the beginning of the
next year.
" I will now, if you please, undertake the somewhat dangerous responsibility
of avowing my own impressions of the letters I am about to read to you. I
own that I believe I see in these papers the development of a principle of the
deepest interest and importance, — namely, the application of the highest standard
in the interpretation of the Gospel message to ourselves as clergymen, and from
ourselves) to our congregations. We have plenty elsewhere of doctrine and dogma,
and undefinable shades of theological opinion. Let us turn at last to practical
questions presented for our consideration by an eminent layman whose field of
work lies quite as much in religion and ethics, as it does, reaching to so splendid
an eminence, in Art. A man is wanted to show to both clergy and laity some-
thing of the full force and meaning of Gospel teaching. Many there are, and I
am of this number, whose cry is ' JExoriare aliquis. '
" I ask you, if possible, to do iii an hour what I have been for the last two
months trying to do, to divest myself of old forms of thought, to cast off self-
indulgent views of our duty as ministers of religion, to lift ourselves out of
those grooves in which we are apt to run so smoothly and so complacently, per-
suading ourselves that all is well just as it is, and to endeavour to strike into
a sterner, harder path, beset with difficulties, but still the path of duty. These
papers will demand a close, a patient, and in some places, a few will think, an
indulgent consideration; but as a whole, the standard taken is, as I firmly
believe, speaking only for myself, lofty and Christian to the extent of an almost
ideal perfection. If we do go forward straight in the direction which Mr.
Ruskin points out, I know we shall come, sooner or later, to a chasm right across
our path. Some of us, I hope, will undauntedly cross it. Let each judge for
himself, r<f rA« irlffnv <f>tpuv"
An extract (on the value of Ruskin's writings) from Preliminary State-
ment of the Ruskin Society of Manchester, p. 8. Text of the eleven
Letters, pp. 9-39. There is no headline, the pages being numbered
centrally.
Issued in stiff, lavender-coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page
(enclosed in a plain ruled frame) reproduced upon the front. 150 copies.
2. The eleven Letters were next printed, with a view to eliciting wider
discussion, in the Contemporary Review, December 1879, vol. xxxvi. pp. 539-
552. The article was headed "The Lord's Prayer and the Church. | Letters
addressed by John Ruskin, D.C.L., | to the Clergy." Some explanatory
remarks then followed : —
"The following letters, which are still receiving the careful consideration of
many of my brother clergy, are, at the suggestion of the Editor, now printed in
the Contemporary Review, with the object of eliciting a further and wider expres-
sion of opinion. In addition to the subjoined brief Introductory Address, I desire
here to say that every reader of these remarkable Letters should remember that
they have proceeded from the pen of a very eminent layman, who has not had
the advantage, or disadvantage, of any special theological training; but yet
whose extensive studies in Art have not prevented him from fully recognizing,
and boldly avowing, his belief that religion is everybody's business, and his not
less than another's. The draught may be a bitter one for some of us ; but it is
a salutary medicine, and we ought not to shrink from swallowing it.
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 181
" I shall be glad to receive such expressions of opinion as I may be favoured
with from the thoughtful readers of the Contemporary Review. Those comments
or replies, along with the original letters, and an essay or commentary from myself
as editor, will be published by Messrs. Strahan & Co., and appear early in the
spring; the volume being closed by a reply, or Epilogue, from Mr. Ruskin
himself.
"F. A. MALLESON, M.A.
"THE VICARAGE,
" BROUQHTON-IN-FUBNESS."
The " Introduction," reprinted from No. 1, came next ; followed by the
eleven Letters.
3. Collected Volume, with additional matter (1880). — The publication of
the Letters in the Contemporary brought Mr. Malleson various communi-
cations, and Ruskin agreed to the republication of his Letters in a book,
for which he wrote an Epilogue. The title-page is as follows: —
The Lord's Prayer | and the Church | Letters to the Clergy | By John
Ruskin, D.C.L. | With Replies from Clergy and Laity, and an j Epi-
logue by Mr. Ruskin. | Edited, with Essays and Comments, by | the
Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A. | Vicar of Broughton-in-Furness | [Pub-
lishers' device — an Anchor, etc.] \ Strahan and Company Limited |
34 Paternoster Row, London | [All rights reserved],
Crown 8vo, pp. xvi. -f 371. Title-page (with imprint on the reverse: "Hazell,
Watson, & Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury"), pp. Hi., ir. The
Introduction, by Mr. Malleson, to ed. 1 was again reprinted, pp. v.— ix.
Contents, pp. xi.-xiii. Ruskin's Letters, pp. 1-45. Essays and Comments,
by Mr. Malleson, pp. 49-121. (Three "Minor Letters" from Ruskin were
included on pp. 103-105.) Prefatory remarks to "Letters from Clergy and
Laity," by Mr. Malleson, pp. 125-128, in the course of which he says: —
" Before the sheets are sent to press they will be perused by Mr. Ruskin, who
will then use his privilege of replying, thus bringing the volume to a conclusion."
Letters from Clergy and Laity, pp. 129-328. Epilogue by Ruskin, pp. 331-
363. Appendix (containing extracts from two more Minor Letters from
Ruskin), pp. 364-371. Each division of the book has its own title as head-
line on each page.
Issued (in the latter half of 1880) in brown-coloured cloth, lettered
across the back : " The Lord's Prayer | and the Church. | Letters to | the
Clergy | By | John Ruskin, D.C.L. | With replies from Clergy | and Laity.
| Edited by the | Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A." Price 7s. 6d. The edition
was rapidly sold out.
4. Collected Volume: Second Edition; (a) First Issue (1880).— Called
" Second Edition" on the title-page, which otherwise resembles that of
the preceding edition. The only difference in the contents of the book is
the insertion of an additional letter (from Miss Whately), occupying
pp. 328-341. The Epilogue thus becomes pp. 343-377, and the Appendix
pp. 378-385.
Issued in brown-coloured cloth, in all respects resembling its predecessor.
Price 7s. 6d.
(b) Re-issue (1883). — This was turned out in violet-coloured cloth, lettered
differently across the back, thus: "The | Lord's | Prayer | and the | Church
| Letters by | John Ruskin | Malleson | Strahan & Co." Price 7s. 6d.
182 ON THE OLD ROAD
5. The Letters by Ruskin (only) and his Epilogue were next reprinted
in On the Old Road (for Bibliographical Note on which, see above, pp. 85-89).
The Letters occupied §§ 223-266 ; in ed. 1 (1885), pp. 302-352 ; in ed. 2
(1899), vol. iii. pp. 310-362.
6. Collected Volume, revised edition (1896). — Called "Third Edition" on
the title-page, which is as follows : —
Letters | to the Clergy | on | The Lord's Prayer and the Church | By
John Ruskin, LL.D., D.C.L. | With Replies from Clergy and Laity,
and | an Epilogue by Mr. Ruskin | Edited, with Essays and Comments,
by the | Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A. | Vicar of Broughton-in-Furness |
Third Edition | With Additional Letters by Mr. Ruskin | London |
George Allen, 156, Charing Cross Road | 1896 | [All rights reserved].
Crown 8vo, pp. xviii. +332. Title-page (with imprint on the reverse:
''Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. | At the Ballantyne Press"),
pp. iii., iv. "Introduction" (as in previous editions), pp. v.-ix. "Preface
to the Third Edition," pp. xi.-xvi., as follows : —
' ' Having been urged to bring out a new edition of the volume first edited by
me in 1880, and having willingly accepted the invitation to do so, it will naturally
be expected that I should give some account of the circumstances which have led
me to take the somewhat unusual step of reviving a book which has for twelve
years been lying in a state of suspended animation.
" On the first conception of this volume I applied to Messrs. Strahan, to
produce it before the reading and thinking world. I should have done more
wisely, no doubt, bad I offered the publication to Mr. George Allen, Mr. Buskin's
well-known publisher. It avails not to explain why I chose a different course, of
which subsequent events only too soon showed me the error ; for after the first
edition had been sold off in a week, and while the second was partly sold and
partly in preparation, Messrs. Strahan's failure was announced, greatly to my
surprise ; my somewhat isolated position in the north country so far from London
keeping me very imperfectly informed as to what was passing in the literary
world.
"Reasonable, business-like people would ask, why did I not make an effort
to rescue my little barque out of the general wreckage, and why did I not,
remembering that Mr. Ruskin had with much kindness freely bestowed the copy-
right on me, save the second edition and arrange with another publisher to carry
the work on ? But I was failing at the time with the illness which was effectually
cured only by a long sojourn amidst or very near to the ice and snow of the
Alps. I was incapable of much exertion, and, in fact, did not much care.
Besides which I am not a professed literary man, being chiefly interested in the
work of my rural parish on the borders of the Lake District, and should not think
it fair, or even possible, if I may use an equestrian metaphor, to attempt to ride
two horses at once.
"So Mr. Ruskin's letters, etc., as edited by the present writer, came to be
entirely laid by, though not forgotten by the hosts of Mr. Ruskin's friends,
followers, and admirers, who regretted the suspension of so valuable a work and
so rich in great thoughts, teachings, and suggestions.
"So things remained until August 1895, when a new friend, Mr. Smart, gave
me the pleasure of a visit, and we talked over the circumstances just narrated.
Passing over several very pleasant meetings in London, let it be sufficient to
mention that under the impulse of Mr. George Allen's encouragement, and
cheered by the valuable assistance and co-operation of another friend, Mr. T. J.
Wise, I agreed to carry forward this Third Edition with the full approbation
and consent of Mr. Ruskin himself, though it should be said that on account of
the state of his health, I have been unable to consult him on any of the details
of the publication.
" But it will not be exactly the same volume. Mr. Allen and Mr. Wise, having
gone over much of my correspondence with Mr. Ruskin, were good enough to
express a desire that some of those letters addressed to myself as a friend should
be embodied in the present volume, as being strongly illustrative of his views
on the subjects dealt with in his more formal Letters to the Clergy. I may
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 183
claim pardon for a feeling of great satisfaction with the circumstance that in
the course of so long and so delicate a correspondence as is contained in this
volume, never has a cloud overshadowed our paths in this matter, never has a
cold blast from the east sent a shiver through my system, nor, I presume, his.
For had Mr. Ruskin felt any resentment at anything I wrote, with his usual
downright frankness he would not have been backward for an hour in express-
ing in vehement language what he felt. But from first to last my intercourse
with that kind and eminently distinguished friend has been kept bright and
happy by his unvarying serenity.
" The Letters from Clergy and Laity in this Third Edition occupy much less
space than in the original one. It was Mr. Ruskin's wish that they should be
subjected to some process of abridgment ; besides which the allowing of space
for the new feature of additional Ruskin Letters made a curtailment in another
direction necessary. The plan which seemed to me the least discourteous to my
numerous correspondents of that time has been to make a selection of passages
from a certain number of the Letters.
" F. A. MALLESON.
"THE VICARAGE,
1 ' BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS,
"January 1896."
Contents, p. xvii. Ruskin's Eleven Letters, pp. 1-47. Essays and Com-
ments, by Mr. Malleson, pp. 51-129 (the " Minor Letters " included in the
preceding edition are transferred to a later place). ee Letters from Clergy
and Laity," with Mr. Malleson's prefatory note, pp. 133-218. Half-title
"Letters from Brantwood-on-the-Lake to the Vicarage of Broughton-
in-Furness "), p. 219. " Preface " to them, by Mr. Malleson, pp. 221-223.
Fifty-one Letters (47 from Ruskin1), pp. 223-286. Ruskin's Epilogue,
pp. 289-322. Appendix (with an additional note by Ruskin), pp. 325-332.
Issued on May 11, 1896, in green cloth, uniform with the Small Edition
of Ruskin's books, lettered across the back, " Ruskin | Letters to | The
Clergy." Price 5s. net. ; reduced in January 1904 to 3s. 6d. This edition
is still current.
7. The Eleven Letters (but not the Epilogue), with various others, were
next issued in 1896 in a privately-printed volume, with the following title-
page :—
Letters | from | John Ruskin | to | Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A. | Vicar
of Broughton-in-Furness \ Edited by Thomas J. Wise | London: Privately
Printed \ 1896.
Octavo, pp. xii. + 102. Title-page (with blank reverse), pp. iii., iv. On
p. v. is the intimation, " The Impression of this book is limited to a few
copies for Private Circulation only." On p. 6 is the following "Note": —
"Of the thirty-eight Letters contained in this volume ten have already been
printed, though in a sadly garbled and mutilated form.2 These ten originally
appeared in Letters to the Clergy, a privately-printed pamphlet issued in 1879,
and were afterwards included in The Lord's Prayer and the' Church, 1880
(second ed. 1883), from which work Mr. Wedderburn reprinted them in On^the
Old Road. The whole thirty-eight are now given precisely from the original
holographs."
Contents, pp. vii.-xii. Letters, pp. 3-102. On a page facing p. 102 is
the device of "The Ashley Library."
1 Nos. 12 and 16 are from Malleson to Ruskin ; No. 22 is from Canon Farrar to
Malleson ; and No. 24, from Miss Susanna Beever to him.
2 On this subject, see below, p. 187.
184 ON THE OLD ROAD
SYNOPSIS OF RUSKIN'S LETTERS TO MALLESON
The following list enumerates all Ruskin's printed Letters to the Rev.
F. A. Malleson ; states in which of the seven publications described above
(and here referred to as "ed. 1," "ed. 2," etc.) they have appeared ; and
gives references to the places in the present edition where they will be
found : —
1. 1872, November 1.— No. 1 in ed. 7.— Letters.1
2. Undated.— No. 2 in ed. 6, p. 224.— Letters.
3. 1875, July 23.— No. 2 in ed. 7. Partly given in No. 3 of ed. 6,
pp. 225-228 (where it is wrongly dated " 1879").— Letters.
4. 1876, September 8. — No. 3 in ed. 7 (pp. 10-11, where it is wrongly
dated " Brantwood "). The P.S. only is No. 4 in ed. 6,
pp. 228-229 (where it is wrongly dated " 1879 ")•— Letters.
5. 1879, June 20. — Letter I.1 in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 9-10 in ed. 1 ;
p. 541 in the Contemporary; pp. 1, 2 in eds. 3 and 4). § 223
in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 302-303 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii.
pp. 310-311 in ed. 2); pp. 3, 4 in ed. 6. No. 4 in ed. 7
(pp. 12, IS).— Below, p. 191.
6. 1879, June 23.— Letter II. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 10-12 in ed. 1 ;
pp. 541-542 in the Contemporary; pp. 3-5 in eds. 3 and 4).
§§ 224, 225 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 303-305 in ed. 1 ;
vol. iii. pp. 311-313 in ed. 2); pp. 5-7 in ed. 6. No. 5 in
ed. 7 (pp. 14-16).— Below, pp. 192-193.
7. 1879, July 6. — Ed. 1 of Letters to the Clergy (pp. 12-14) gave a portion
of this letter (' f What I send you " to the end a) and the post-
script (not there called such). The portion of the letter was
not included in the next publications, as Ruskin struck it out
in revising ed. 1, the postscript only becoming Letter III. of
the Letters to the Clergy ; p. 542 in the Contemporary ; pp. 6,
7 in eds. 3 and 4 of Letters to the Clergy. § 226 in On the Old
Road (vol. ii. pp. 305-306 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 313-314 in
ed. 2) ; pp. 8-9 in ed. 6. The rest of the Letter was separately
printed in ed. 6 as No. 1 in the supplementary Letters, where
it was wrongly dated "July 8" (pp. 223-224). — For the whole
Letter, see below, pp. 193-194.
8. 1879, July 8.— Letter IV. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 14-16 in ed. 1 ;
pp. 542-3 in the Contemporary; pp. 7-10 in eds. 3 and 4).
§§ 227, 228 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 306-308 in ed. 1 ;
vol. iii. pp. 314-316 in ed. 2); pp. 9-12 in ed. 6. No. 7 in
ed. 7 (pp. 20-22).— Below, pp. 194-196.
9. 1879, July 10.— Letter V. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 16-18 in ed. 1 ;
pp. 543-544 in the Contemporary; pp. 10-12 in eds. 3 and 4).
§ 229 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 308-309 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii.
pp. 316-317 in ed. 2); pp. 12-14 in ed. 6. No. 8 in ed. 7
(pp. 23-25).— Below, pp. 196-197.
1 That ia, the collection of Private Letters in Vols. XXXVI., XXXVII.
2 Called Letter II. in ed. 1 (where it is added that ' ' the first Letter ia not
printed here," and where the numbers of all the Letters differ from those in the
later editions), but called Letter I. in subsequent editions.
3 Omitting, however, the words "do" and "if anything."
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 185
10. 1879, July 12.— Letter VI. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 18-21 in ed. 1 ;
pp. 544-545 in the Contemporary; pp. 13-17 in eds. 3 and 4).
§§ 230, 231 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 309-312 in ed. 1 ;
vol. iii. pp. 318-320 in ed. 2) ; pp. 15-19 in ed. 6. No. 9 in
ed. 7 (pp. 26-30).— Below, pp. 197-199.
11. 1879, July 14.— Letter VII. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 21-24 in ed. 1 ;
pp. 545-546 in the Contemporary; pp. 17-22 in eds. 3 and 4).
§§ 232, 233 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 312-515 in ed. 1 ;
vol. iii.i pp. 321-324 in ed. 2) ; pp. 19-25 in ed. 6. No. 10 in
ed. 7 (pp. 31-35).— Below, pp. 199-202.
12. 1879, July 30.— No. 11 in ed. 7 (pp. 36-37). No. 5 in the supple-
mentary Letters of ed. 6 (pp. 229-230).— Below, p. 234.
13. 1879, July 31.— No. 12 in ed. 7 (pp. 38-39). No. 6 in the supple-
mentary Letters of ed. 6 (pp. 230-231).— Below, p. 234.
14. 1879, August 2.— No. 13 in ed. 7 (p. 40). No. 7 in the supplementary
Letters of ed. 6 (p. 232).— Below, p. 235.
15. 1879, August 4.— No. 14 in ed. 7 (pp. 41-42). No. 8 in the sup-
plementary Letters of ed. 6 (pp. 233-234).— Below, p. 235.
16. 1879, August 7.— No. 15 in ed. 7 (pp. 43-44). No. 9 in the sup-
plementary Letters of ed. 6 (pp. 234-235).— Below, p. 236.
17. 1879, August 9, with postscript of August 13, and a further letter
dated by Mr. Malleson (wrongly) August 12. — Letter VIII. in
tetters to the Clergy (pp. 24-29 in ed. 1 ; pp. 546-548 in the Con-
temporary; pp. 23-30 in eds. 3 and 4). §§ 234-237 in On the
Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 316-320 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 324-329 in
ed. 2) ; pp. 25-32 in ed. 6. No. 16 in ed. 7 (pp. 45-51) : the
''further letter" is, however, not there given. It was not
dated by Ruskin.— Below, pp. 202-205.
18. 1879, August 9.— No. 10 in the supplementary Letters of ed. 6 (p. 235).
—Below, p. 236.
19. 1879, August 19.— Letter IX. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 29-32 in
ed. 1 ; pp. 548-549 in the Contemporary ; pp. 30-33 in eds. 3
and 4). §§ 238, 239 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 320-322
in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 329-331 in ed. 2) ; pp. 32-36 in ed. 6.
No. 17 in ed. 7 (pp. 52-55).— Below, pp. 206-207.
20. 1879, August 30.— No. 18 in ed. 7 (pp. 56-57).— Letters.
21. 1879, September 2.— No. 19 in ed. 7 (pp. 58-59). No. 11 in the sup-
plementary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 236-237). — Letters.
22. 1879, September 3.— Letter X. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 32-36 in
ed. 1 ; pp. 549-551 in the Contemporary ; pp. 34-39 in eds. 3
and 4). §§ 240-243 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 323-326
in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 331-335 in ed. 2) ; pp. 36-42 in ed. 6.
No. 20 in ed. 7 (pp. 60-65).— Below, pp. 208-210.
23. 1879, September 5. — No. 13 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(pp. 240-241).— Below, p. 236.
24. 1879, September 7. — No. 14 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(p. 241).— Letters.
25. 1879, September 9.— No. 15 in those Letters (pp. 241-243). No. 21
in ed. 7 (pp. 66-67).— Letters.
186 ON THE OLD ROAD
26. 1879, September 13. — Printed among the "Letters and Comments"
in Letters to the Clergy, eds. 3 and 4 (p. 103). § 247 in On the
Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 329-330 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 338-339 in
ed. 2). No. 17 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 246-
247). No. 22 in ed. 7 (p. 68).— Below, p. 236.
27. 1879, September 14. — Printed among the "Letters and Comments" in
Letters to the Clergy, eds. 3 and 4 (p. 104). § 247 in On the Old
Road (vol. ii. p. 330 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. p. 339 in ed. 2). No. 18
in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 247-248). No. 23 in
ed. 7 (pp. 69-70).— Below, p. 236.
28. 1879, September 14.— Letter XI. in Letters to the Clergy (pp. 36-39 in
ed. 1; pp. 551-552 in the Contemporary; pp. 40-45 in eds.
3 and 4). §§ 244-246 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 326-329
in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 335-338 in ed. 2) ; pp. 42-47 in ed. 6.
No. 24 in ed. 7 (pp. 71-76).— Below, pp, 210-213.
29. 1879, September 16. — No. 19 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(p. 248).— Letters.
30. 1879 (undated).— No. 20 in the same (p. 249).— Below, p. 237.
31. 1879, October 13.— No. 21 in the same (pp. 249-250). No. 25 in ed. 7
(pp. 77-78).— Below, p. 237.
32. 1879, October 17- — Partly printed in the "Letters and Comments" in
Letters to the Clergy, eds. 3 and 4 (pp. 104-105). § 248 in On
the Old Road (vol. ii. pp. 330-331 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 339-
340 in ed. 2). Printed more fully as No. 23 in the supple-
mentary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 251-254). No. 26 (complete) in
ed. 7 (pp. 79-81).— Below, pp. 237-238.
33. 1879, October 31.— No. 27 in ed. 7 (p. 82).— Below, p. 238.
34. 1879, November 7. — No. 25 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(pp. 256-257).— Below, p. 238.
35: 1879, November 12.— No. 28 in ed. 7 (p. 83).— Below, p. 238.
36. 1879, November 19. — No. 26 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(pp. 257-258).— Letters.
37. 1880, January 5.— No. 27 in the same (pp. 258-259).— Below, p. 239.
38. 1880, January 7.— No. 28 in the same (pp. 259-260).— Below, p. 239.
39. 1880, April 14.— No. 31 in the same (p. 262).— Below, p. 239.
40. 1880, April 17— No. 30 in the same (pp. 261-262).— Below, p. 239.
41. 1880, May 9.— No. 32 in the same (pp. 262-263).— Below, p. 239.
42. 1880, May 10. — Partly printed in an Appendix to eds. 3 and 4 of
Letters to the Clergy, where the letter is wrongly dated " May 16 "
(p. 371 in ed. 3 ; p. 385 in ed. 4). Thence reprinted in a foot-
note to § 249 in On the Old Road (vol. ii. p. 333 n. in ed. 1 ;
vol. iii. p. 342 n. in ed. 2). Printed (complete) as No. 29 in the
supplementary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 260-261). No. 29 in ed. 7,
without the postscript (pp. 84-85). — Below, p. 240.
43. 1880, May (day not given).— No. 30 in ed. 7 (pp. 86-87).— Letters.
44. 1880, May 14. — Partly printed in an Appendix to eds. 3 and 4 of
Letters to the Clergy (pp. 370-371 in ed. 3 ; pp. 384-385 in ed. 4).
Thence reprinted in a footnote to § 249 in On the Old Road
(vol.1 ii. p. 333 n. in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. p. 342 n. in ed. 2). Printed
(complete) as No. 33 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6
(pp. 263-264). No. 31 in ed. 7, with a sentence omitted (pp. 88-
89).— Below, p. 240.
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 187
46. 1880, May 26.— No. 34 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6 (p. 266).
No. 32 in ed. 7, with a sentence omitted (p. 90). — Below,
pp. 240-241.
46. 1880, June 7. — No. 35 in the supplementary Letters in ed. 6 (pp. 267-
268). No. 33 in ed. 7, with two sentences omitted (pp. 91-
92).— Below, p. 241.
47. 1880, June 13.— No. 36 in the same (pp. 270-271).— Below, p. 241.
48. 1880 (undated, but before June 25). — No. 37 in the supplementary
Letters in ed. 6 (p. 269).— Below, p. 241.
49. 1880, June 25.— No. 40 in the same (pp. 271-273).— Below, p. 242.
50. 1880, June 27.— No. 38 in the same (pp. 270-271).— Below, p. 242.
51. 1880, July (day not given). — No. 43 in the same (pp. 277-278), where
it is erroneously included among Letters of 1881. — Below,
pp. 242-243.
52. 1880, June and July.— Epilogue to Letters to the Clergy (pp. 331-363
in ed. 3 ; pp. 345-377 in ed. 4). §§ 249-266 in On the Old Road
(vol. ii. pp. 332-352 in ed. 1 ; vol. iii. pp. 341-362 in ed. 2) ;
pp. 289-322 in ed. 6.— Below, pp. 215-230.
53. 1880, July 15.— No. 39 in the same (p. 271).— Letters.
54. 1881, April 13.— No. 41 in the same (pp. 273-275), where it is wrongly
dated " April 30." No. 34 in ed. 7 (pp. 93-94).— Below, p. 243.
55. 1881, April 14. — A note in a MS. sent to Mr. Malleson. Printed in
the Appendix to ed. 6 of Letters to the Clergy (pp. 331-332).—
Below, p. 233.
56. 1881, April 23.— No. 42 in the same (pp. 275-277), where Mr. Malleson
made some omissions. No. 35 (complete) in ed. 7 (pp- 95-
97).— Letters.
57. 1881 (undated, but apparently referring to the same subject). — No. 44
in the same (pp. 278-279). — Letters.
58. 1881, May 26. — No. 45 in the same (pp. 280-281).— Letters.
69. 1881, August 26.— No. 46 in the same (p. 281).— Letters.
60. 1881, October 21.— No. 47 in the same (pp. 281-282).— Letters.
61. 1882, November 15.— No. 48 in the same (pp. 282-283).— Letters.
62. 1882, November 20.— No. 49 in the same (pp. 283-284). No. 36 in
ed. 7 (pp. 98-99).— Letters.
63. 1883, January 22. — No. 50 in the same (pp. 284-285). No. 37 in ed. 7
(pp. 100-101).— Letters.
64. 1883, February 6.— No. 51 in the same (p. 286). No. 38 in ed. 7
(p. 102).— Below, p. 243.
COLLATION OF THE TEXT
The principal Letters (I.-XL), as printed by Mr. Malleson (in publi-
cations 1-6), show numerous alterations from the original MS. of them,
from which ed. 7 was printed. These variations, which are detailed on
the following pages, are of two kinds: (1) those in which all the eds. 1-6
differ from ed. 7 ; (2) those in which eds. 2-6 thus differ. The editor of the
privately-printed edition (ed. 7) seems, from his Note (see above, p. 183),
to have assumed that Mr. Malleson made all the alterations ; but he cer-
tainly did not make (2), for Mr. Allen had a copy of ed. 1 revised by
Ruskin in his own hand. With regard to (1), some of the variations may
188 ON THE OLD ROAD
have been alterations made in Ruskin's MS. by Mr. Malleson, but many of
the alterations are of a kind that Mr. Malleson could hardly have taken it
upon himself to make ; they often bear strong internal evidence of Ruskin's
hand in revision. The present editors have therefore assumed that for the
most part the alterations were either made by Ruskin or approved by him ;
the text of ed. 7 is consequently not followed, except in one or two places
where Mr. Malleson's text is obviously wrong (probably owing to mis-
prints), and for supplying passages which Mr. Malleson had omitted.
Of the differences between the revised text and the original MS. letters
(followed in publication No. 7), some are recorded in footnotes, and to them
a reference only is here supplied. The other variations are as follow : —
Letter I., line 6, the MS. reads "... long so earnest, if in any
wise it were possible . . ." ; line 10, ". . . I should like to be able
to . . ."
Letter II., line 9, the MS. reads "guests" for "friends"; line 10,
"mathematical" for "exact"; line 13, "on" for "upon"; lines 16-26,
see p. 192 n.
Letter III., line 1 of the P.S., the MS. has no "a" before "clear
answer"; line 9, it has "in its essential conditions" after "Gospel of
Christ."
Letter IV., line 20, the MS. has no "that" after "think"; lines 35
and 36, it does not contain "of mine"; line 27, " entire" is underlined
(italicised accordingly in ed. 7).
Letter V., line 19, " speU" is not underlined in the MS.; line 24, "for
all," not in the MS. ; lines 27-29, see p. 197 n.
Letter VI., line 9, the MS. has "civil" for " reverent" in ed. 1; line
12, it omits "the words"; line 13 reads "delicate" for "passionless";
lines 19-21, read "... the seventh verse, marking the real power of the
English . . ." ; line 23, reads "need" for " needs"; line 34, omits "so";
line 38, has "however" after " which," instead of after " myself"; line
41, has " of consideration " after " subject " and "meeting" for "meetings" ;
line 42, ' ' possible " instead of ' ' probable " ; line 55, " His " for " the " ;
lines 57 and 58, read "... our souls only, but those outcast ones." For
a P.S., see p. 199 n.
Letter VII., line 16, the MS. omits "human"; lines 19 and 20, "us"
and "if" are underlined in the MS.; line 24, the MS. has "confusion"
for "comparison" (and the latter reading is obviously a mistake, though
Ruskin in reading ed. 1 did not detect it); lines 30, 35, 39, "Thine,"
"pray," and "that" are underlined in the MS. (and here, again, the
italicising is necessary to bring out the sense) ; line 44, it omits " its "
before "joy"; line 50, underlines "have"; line 53, "as" for "so"; line
54, "as" not italicised.
Letter VIII., line 19, "increasing" was before "west-ends"; lines 25
and 26, " Levi " is italicised, and " Law " in small capitals ; lines 28 and
29, "... end ... is " for " ends . . . are " ; line 50, " with either " for
"either with"; line 72, "to purge" for "purging."
Letter IX., line 3, the MS. does not contain "of it" after "every
word"; nor in line 25, "the" before "produce"; line 43, it reads "yet
heard" for "heard yet."
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 189
Letter X., line 25, it does not contain "hi" before "pain"; line 69,
it does not italicise "at least."
Letter XI., line 46, it has " resolute" before " correlative" ; lines 56
and 57, it reads "... partly concealed and partly excused, as involuntary,
by the shelter and pressure . . . '' ; line 66, it omits the first " come."
These alterations between the MS. (followed in ed. 7) and the printed
text were, as already explained, presumably made or approved by Ruskin
before ed. 1 was issued.
The pamphlet (No. 1 in the above list, p. 179) was revised by Ruskin,
who, besides various minor alterations of paragraphing, italicising, and
punctuation, made the following corrections : —
To Letter II. he appended a footnote (p. 192) ; and in line 23, inserted
"Alpine."
Letter III. See above, p. 184 (No. 7).
Letter V., line 20, he corrected the misprint " assumed" for " accursed."
Letter VI., line 9, he altered "reverent" to "respectful"; 8th line
from end, "the murmur of the gnat" to "the gnat's murmur."
Letter VII., line 3, he altered " when " to " where " — a correction now
followed for the first time ; line 10, he altered " raised " to " smoothed " ;
line 17, he inserted "as." Mr. Malleson's note to this Letter (partly
embodied below, p. 200 n.) appeared for the first time in the Contemporary,
in accordance with suggestions noted by Ruskiu in revising the pamphlet.
Letter VIII., llth line from end of portion dated 13th August, he
altered "where" to "whose" ashes; and three lines lower, he altered
"them" to "the crowd."
Letter X., line 22, he altered "happen" to "chance"; and in line 4
on p. "219, he inserted " of."
Letter XL, in line 17 on p. 212, he altered "all" (before "sight")
to "the."
These errors were corrected in the Contemporary Review and subsequent
issues of the Letters.
The text was not altered in publications 3, 4, and 5 in the above list
(pp. 181, 182), except as already explained in the synopsis, and except
that Mr. Malleson (probably at Ruskin's suggestion) now added the Greek
and Latin words of the Prayer at the head of each Letter.
Next, the edition of 1896 introduced an error into Letter VIII., trans-
posing " and following comfort and wealth " from the end to the beginning
of the clause. For a trifling alteration, see p. 217 (note 1).
Finally, in the Supplementary Letters there are variations between
eds. 6 and 7. Thus for variations in No. 32, see below, p. 238 n. In
No. 44 (p. 240), ed. 7 omits the second section ("I had never seen . . .
done my Scott"), and in line 7 has "yours over" for "your own." In
Letter 45 (pp. 240-241), ed. 7 omits the last sentence (" I should give . . .
somewhere else"). In Letter 46 (p. 241), ed. 7 omits "And I've had . . .
to the book" and "Thanks for note . . . wood or garden." Ed. 7 in the
case of all the letters included in it gives the address (" Brantwood "),
"My dear," etc., and "Yours," etc.
190 ON THE OLD ROAD
Reviews of Letters to the Clergy (in some cases of the publication in the
Contemporary Review, iu others of the book) appeared in : —
Modern ^Thought, January 1880, vol. 2, pp. 290-291 ("Mr. Rujskin's
Letters to the Clergy on the Fatherhood of God/' by the Rev. H. N.
Grim ley).
Manchester Weekly Times (by " Verax "), quoted in the Unitarian Herald,
January 9, 1880.
Athenteum, December 18, 1880.
Glasgow Herald, January 13, 1881.
London Quarterly Review, April 1881, vol. 56, pp. 132-149.
Academy, August 13, 1881.
The Letters also called forth the following pamphlet: —
A Defence I of the | Church of England | against the Accusations | contained
in the Letters of Mr. Ruskin | Published in the ' ' Contemporary Review " | of
December, 1879. | By W. C. Sillar. | London : | Printed by A. Southey, 146.
Fenchurch Street, B.C. | 1880. | Price One Shilling.
The " defence " was sarcastic.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND
THE CHURCH
LETTER I1
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
20th June, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I could not at once answer
your important letter : for, though I felt at once the im-
possibility of my venturing to address such an audience as
you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to any
call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have
been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for
me to be of service therein. My health — or want of it —
now utterly forbids my engagement in any duty involv-
ing excitement or acute intellectual effort ; but 1 think,
before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to
write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more
or less completing, some passages already printed in Fors
and elsewhere,2 which might, on your reading any portions
you thought available, become matter of discussion during
the meeting at some leisure time, after its own main pur-
poses had been answered.
At all events, I will think over what I should like, and
be able, to represent to such a meeting, and only beg you
not to think me insensible of the honour done me by your
wish, and of the gravity of the trust reposed in me.
Ever most faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THE REV. F. A. MALLESON.
1 [No. 5 in the synopsis of Ruskin's letters to Malleson : see above, p. 184.
For the circumstances in which this series of Letters was written, see pp. 179, 180.]
2 [See the General Index under " Church," " Clergy," and " Lord's Prayer."]
191
192 ON THE OLD ROAD
LETTER II1
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, ZSrd June, 1879-
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — Walking, and talking, are now
alike impossible to me ; * my strength is gone for both ; nor
do I believe talking on such matters to be of the least use
except to promote, between sensible people, kindly feeling
and knowledge of each other's personal characters. I have
every trust in your kindness and truth ; nor do I fear
being myself misunderstood by you ; what I may be able
to put into written form, so as to admit of being laid
before your friends in council, must be set down without
any question of personal feeling — as simply as a mathe-
matical question or demonstration.
The first exact question which it seems to me such an
assembly may be earnestly called upon by laymen to solve,
is surely axiomatic : the definition of themselves as a body,
and of their business as such.
Namely : as clergymen of the Church of England, do they
consider themselves to be so called merely as the attached
servants of a particular State ? Do they, in their quality
of guides, hold a position similar to that of the guides of
Chamouni or Grindelwald, who, being a numbered body
of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those
several villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grin-
delwaldist opinions on the subject of Alpine geography or
glacier walking: but are prepared to put into practice a
common and universal science of Locality and Athletics,
founded on sure survey and successful practice ? 2 Are the
* " In answer to the proposal of discussing the subject during a moun-
tain walk."
1 [No. 6 in the synopsis ; above, p. 184.]
2 [The original letter as printed by Mr. Wise (see above, p. 183) is different
here : —
" Namely : whether as clergymen of the Church of England, they con-
sider themselves merely so called as the attached servants of a particular
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 193
clergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the
attached and salaried guides of England and the English,
in the way, known of all good men, that leadeth unto
life?1 — or are they, on the contrary, a body of men holding,
or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold,
opinions on the subject — say, of the height of the Celestial
Mountains, the crevasses which go down quickest to the
pit, and other cognate points of science, — differing from,
or even contrary to, the tenets of the guides of the
Church of France, the Church of Italy, and other Chris-
tian countries ?
Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical
Council has to answer in open terms ?
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
LETTER III2
BRANTWOOD, 6th July, 1879.
MY DEAR MR. MALLESON, — You must make no public
announcement of any paper by me. I am not able to
count on my powers of mind for an hour; and will
absolutely take no responsibility. What I do send you —
if anything — will be in the form of a series of short letters
to yourself, of which you have already the first : This the
second for the sake of continuing the order unbroken con-
tains the next following question which I should like to
ask. If when the sequence of letters is in your possession
state — as, one would say, the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, a
numbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those
villages, who nevertheless have no Chamounic or Grindelwaldic or other-
wise sectarian opinions on the subject of geography or glacier walking
. . . survey and practice."]
1 [Matthew vii. 14.]
2 [No. 7 in the synopsis ; above, p. 184.
194 ON THE OLD ROAD
you like to read any part or parts of them as a subject of
discussion at your afternoon meeting, I shall be glad and
grateful.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S. — My first letter contained a Layman's plea for a
clear answer to the question, " What is a clergyman of
the Church of England?" Supposing the answer to this
first to be, that the clergy of the Church of England are
teachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel
to all nations ; x and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of
the Gospel of Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ, —
then the Layman's second question would be :
Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words
and short terms as that a plain man may understand it ? —
and, if so, would it not be, in a quite primal sense, desir-
able that it should be so, rather than left to be gathered
out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no means in clear
English, and referring, for further explanation of exactly
the most important point in the whole tenor of their
teaching,2 to a " Homily of Justification," 3 which is not
generally in the possession, or even probably within the
comprehension, of simple persons ?
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
LETTER IV4
BRANTWOOD, 8th July, 1879.
I am so very glad that you approve of the letter plan,
as it enables me to build up what I would fain try to say,
of little stones, without lifting too much for my strength
Mark xiii. 10 : els irdvra. ret tdvt) 8ei irpCirov K-ripvx^rjvai rb
[Art. xi. : see Fors Clavigera, Letter 56 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 398).]
'Homily xi. of the Second Table.]
No. 8 in the synopsis; above, p. 184.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 195
at once ; and the sense of addressing a friend who under-
stands me and sympathizes with me prevents my being
brought to a stand by continual need for apology, or fear
of giving offence.
But yet I do not quite see why you should feel my
asking for a simple and comprehensible statement of the
Christian Gospel as startling. Are you not bid to go into
all the world and preach it to every creature ? l (I should
myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who
accepted the Trdo-y T# KTIO-CI so literally as at least to sym-
pathize with St. Francis' sermon to the birds,2 and to feel
that feeding either sheep or fowls, or unmuzzling the ox,
or keeping the wrens alive in the snow, would be re-
ceived by their Heavenly Feeder as the perfect fulfilment
of His "Feed My sheep"3 in the higher sense.)
That's all a parenthesis ; for although I should think
that your good company would all agree that kindness to
animals was a kind of preaching to them, and that hunting
and vivisection4 were a kind of blasphemy to them, I want
only to put the sterner question before your council, how
this Gospel is to be preached either *' Travra^ov " 5 or to "iravra
ru eOvtj," if first its preachers have not determined quite
clearly what it is? And might not such definition, accept-
able to the entire body of the Church of Christ, be arrived
at by merely explaining, in their completeness and life, the
terms of the Lord's Prayer — the first words taught to chil-
dren all over the Christian world?
I will try to explain what I mean of its several articles,
in following letters ; and in answer to the question with
which you close your last, I can only say that you are at
perfect liberty to use any, or all, or any parts of them, as
you think good. Usually, when I am asked if letters of
mine may be printed, I say : " Assuredly, provided only
'Mark xvi. 15.]
[See Vald'Arno, § 205 (Vol. XXIII. p. 121) ; and compare Vol. XXX11I. p. xxii.]
John xxi. 16; and see Deuterouomy xxv. 4.]
LOn this subject, see below, p. 643 ; and compare p. 509.]
Mark xvi. 20 : ^£eX06iT«f iicfyvf -
XXXIV.
196 ON THE OLD ROAD
that you print them entire." But in your hands, I with-
draw even this condition, and trust gladly to your judgment,
remaining always
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THE REV. F. A. MALLESON.
LETTER V1
ira.TCp Yfiuav 6 iv rots oiyxxvois.
Pater noster qui es in cceks.*
BRANTWOOD, 10th July, 1879.
My meaning, in saying that the Lord's Prayer might
be made a foundation of Gospel-teaching, was not that it
contained all that Christian ministers have to teach ; but
that it contains what all Christians are agreed upon as first
to be taught; and that no good parish-working pastor in
any district of the world but would be glad to take his
part in making it clear and living to his congregation.
And the first clause of it, of course rightly explained,
gives us the ground of what is surely a mighty part of
the Gospel — its "first and great commandment,"8 namely,
that we have a Father whom we can love, and are required
to love, and to desire to be with Him in Heaven, wher-
ever that may be.
And to declare that we have such a loving Father,
whose mercy is over all His works, and whose will and
law is so lovely and lovable that it is sweeter than honey,
and more precious than gold, to those who can " taste "
and "see" that the Lord is Good — this, surely, is a most
pleasant and glorious good message and spell to bring to
men — as distinguished from the evil message and accursed
1 [No. 9 in the synopsis ; above, p. 184.]
8 [The headings to this and the following letters were first added by Mr.
Malleson in the edition of 1880.]
3 [Matthew xxii. 38. For the subsequent Bible references in this letter, see
Psalms cxlv. 9 ; xix. 10 ; xxxiv. 8 ; Deuteronomy iv. 24.]
197
spell that Satan has brought to the nations of the world
instead of it, that they have no Father, but only "a con-
suming fire" ready to devour them, unless they are delivered
from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for all,
for which they are to be thankful, not to the Father, but
to the Son.1
Supposing this first article of the true Gospel agreed
to, how would the blessing that closes the epistles of that
Gospel become intelligible and living, instead of dark and
dead : 2 " The grace of Christ, and the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,"1 — the most tender word
being that used of the Father !
LETTER VI4
r<a r ovopa. <rov.
Sanctificetur notnen tuum.
BRANTWOOD, 12th July, 1879-
I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and
attentively join in our Church services, attach any distinct
idea to the second clause of the Lord's Prayer — the first
petition of it — the first thing that they are ordered by
Christ to seek of their Father?
Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little
more notion on the matter than that God has forbidden
" bad language," and wishes them to pray that everybody
may be respectful to Him ?
1 [Ruskin's clerical critics in the press and elsewhere were slow in catching
his meaning, and supposed that in here separating the Father from the Son, he
was expressing his own views, and not citing, for condemnation, the views of
others : see Mr. Malleson's note below, p. 200.]
* [The original letter reads : "... the epistles of Gospel become intelligible
instead of dead."]
1 [For another reference to the Benediction, see Vol. XXXIII. p. 115.]
* [No. 10 in the synopsis ; above, p. 184. In ed. 4 (p. 80) Mr. Malleson wrote :
"Since writing my notes on Letter VI., in which Mr. Kuskiu gives such vehement
expression to his desire to see the ancient discipline of the Church restored, I
have in conversation with himself learned this to be one of the objects he has
most at heart in writing these letters."]
198 ON THE OLD ROAD
Is it any otherwise with the Third Commandment ? l Do
not most look on it merely in the light of the statute on
swearing ? and read the words " will not hold him guiltless "
merely as a passionless intimation that however carelessly a
man may let out a round oath, there really is something
wrong in it?
On the other hand, can anything be more tremendous
than the words themselves — double-negatived:
" ov yap pr) Ka.Oa.pio~Q Kvpios " ?
For other sins there is washing ; — for this — none ! the seventh
verse (Exod. xx.), in the Septuagint, marking the real power
rather than the English, which (I suppose) is literal to the
Hebrew.
To my layman's mind, of practical needs in the present
state of the Church, nothing is so immediate as that of ex-
plaining to the congregation the meaning of being gathered
in His name, and having Him in the midst of them ; 2 as,
on the other hand, of being gathered in blasphemy of His
name, and having the devil in the midst of them — presid-
ing over the prayers which have become an abomination.
For the entire body of the texts in the Gospel against
hypocrisy are one and all nothing but the expansion of the
threatening that closes the Third Commandment. For as
"the name whereby He shall be called is THE LORD OUR
RIGHTEOUSNESS," — so the taking that name in vain is the
sum of "the deceivableness of ^righteousness in them that
perish."
Without dwelling on the possibility — which I do not
myself, however, for a moment doubt — of an honest clergy-
man's being able actually to prevent the entrance among his
congregation of persons leading openly wicked lives, could
any subject be more vital to the purposes of your meetings
than the difference between the present and the probable
1 [Compare Vol. XVIII. p. 427.]
* [Matthew xviii. 20. For other Bible references in this letter, see Jeremiah
xxiii. 6 ; 2 Thessalonians ii. 10.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 199
state of the Christian Church which would result, were it
more the effort of zealous parish priests, instead of getting
wicked poor people to come to church, to get wicked rich
ones to stay out of it ?
Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be,
as it too often is, alleged that "the Lord looketh upon
the heart," etc.,1 let me be permitted to say — with as much
positiveness as may express my deepest conviction — that,
while indeed it is the Lord's business to look upon the
heart, it is the pastor's to look upon the hands and the
lips ; and that the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-
walker are, in the ears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry,
or the gnat's murmur, compared to the responses, in the
Church service, on the lips of the usurer and the adulterer,
who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those of
the outcast ones whom they have made their victims.
It is for the meeting of Clergymen themselves — not
for a layman addressing them — to ask further, how much
the name of God may be taken in vain, and profaned
instead of hallowed — in the pulpit, as well as under it.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.2
LETTER VII3
Adveniat regnum tuum.
BRANTWOOD, 14-th July, 1879-
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — Sincere thanks for both your
letters and the proofs 4 sent. Your comment and conducting
link, where needed, will be of the greatest help and value,
1 [1 Samuel xvi. 7 : compare Vol. XXXIIJ. p. 194.]
; [Here the original letter has a postscript (printed in ed. 7): "I keep your
letter (I hope not to lose it) to form part of the series if arranged for publication."]
[No. 11 in the synopsis ; above, p. 185. J
4 [The proofs of a forthcoming Life of Christ by Mr. Mallesou : see the post-
script below, p. 202.]
200 ON THE OLD ROAD
I am well assured ; suggesting what you know will be the
probable feeling of your hearers, and the point that will
come into question.
Yes, certainly, that " His " in the fourth line l was meant
to imply that eternal presence of Christ ; as in another
passage, referring to the Creation, " when His right hand
strewed the snow on Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes
of Calvary";2 but in so far as we dwell on that truth,
" Hast thou seen Me, Philip, and not the Father ? " 3 we
are not teaching the people what is specially the Gospel
of Christ as having a distinct function, namely, to serve
the Father, and do the Father's will. And in all His
human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the
Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of
God," 4 that He acts and speaks. Not as the Power ; for
He must pray, like one of us. Not as the Wisdom; for
He must not know "if it be possible"5 His prayer should
be heard.
i:
1 [The reference is to the fourth line (as it stood in the proof-sheet sent to
Ruskin) of the following quotation from Modern Painters, vol. iv. (see Vol. VI.
i. 465), which Mr. Malleson had prefixed to the chapter on the Transfiguration in
iis Life of Christ: —
<( When, in the desert, He was girding Himself for the work of life,
angels of life came and ministered unto Him ; now, in the fair world,
when He is girding Himself for the work of death, the ministrants came
to Him from the grave. But from the grave conquered. One from that
tomb under Abarim, which His own hand had sealed long ago ; the other
from the rest into which He had entered without seeing corruption."
Mr. Malleson, misreading a passage in the Fifth Letter (above, p. 197 «•), bom-
barded Ruskin with this quotation, remarking "that I felt sure Mr. Ruskin re-
garded the loving work of the Father and of the Son as equal in the forgiveness
of sins and redemption of mankind ; that what is done by the Father is in reality
done also by the Son ; and that it is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity
of understanding that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us in language,
inadequate indeed to convey divine truths, but still the only language possible ;
and I asked whether some such feeling was riot present in his mind when he used
the pronoun ' His ' in the above passage from Modern Painters of the Son, where
it would be usually understood of the Father ; and as a corollary, whether, in the
letter, he does not himself fully recognize the fact of the redemption of the world
by the loving self-sacrifice of the Son being in entire concurrence with the equally
loving will of the Father."]
* [Modern Painters, vol. iv. (Vol. VI. p. 117).]
* ["Yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen
the Father" (John xiv. 9).]
4 [1 Corinthians i. 24. J
5 [Matthew xxvi. 39.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 201
And in what I want to say of the third clause of
His prayer (His, not merely as His ordering, but His
using), it is especially this confusion between His king-
dom, and His Father's, that I want to see the disciples
guarded against. I believe very few, even of the most
earnest, using that petition, realize that it is the Father's
— not the Son's — kingdom, that they pray may come, —
although the whole prayer is foundational on that fact :
" For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory."
And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Chris-
tian is quite led away from its proper hope, by dwelling
on the reign — or the coming again — of Christ; which,
indeed, they are to look for, and watch for,1 but not to
pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater kingdom
to which He, risen and having all His enemies under
His feet, is to surrender His, "that God may be All
in All."2
And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom3
which the poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten
Christ's coming. " Of the day and the hour, knoweth
no man."4 But the kingdom of God is as a grain of
mustard-seed : — we can sow of it ; it is as a foam-globe
of leaven : — we can mingle it ; and its glory and its joy
are that even the birds of the air can lodge in the branches
thereof.
Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows ; but
truly in the present state of England, the fowls of the
air are the only creatures, tormented and murdered as
they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if
many of us, in reading that text, " The kingdom of God
is NOT meat and drink," had even got so far as to the
understanding that it is at least as much, and that until
1 [Matthew xxiv. 42.]
2 [1 Corinthians xv. 25, 28.]
1 'Psalms cxlv. 13.]
4 [Matthew xxiv. 36 ; and for the later references, see xiii. 31, 32 ; viii. 20 ;
Romans xiv. 17.]
202 ON THE OLD ROAD
we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to
inspire the unhappy.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of
Christ1 you have sent me in a private letter. I may say
at once that I am sure it will do much good, and will be
upright and intelligible, which how few religious writings
are!
LETTER VIII
T& ^fArj/ia crov, ws fv ovpavQ, KCU «ri 7%.
Fiat voluntas tua sicut in ccelo et in terra.
BRANTWOOD, Qth August, 1879-
I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morn-
ing by chance, and wondering how many clergymen ever
read it, and took to heart the "commandment for them."3
For they are always ready enough to call themselves
priests (though they know themselves to be nothing of the
sort), whenever there is any dignity to be got out of the
title; but, whenever there is any good, hot scolding or
unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in that self-
assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as
ever Dionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of
Herakles inconvenient.4
" Ye have wearied the Lord with your works ; " (yes,
and some of His people too, in your time,) "yet ye say,
Wherein have we wearied Him ? When ye say, Every
one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord,
1 [The private letter was sent on July 30, and was followed by three others
on the same subject. See below, pp. 234, 235.]
* [No. 17 in the synopsis; above, p. 185.]
["And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you" (Malachi ii. 1).]
4 [See Aristophanes, Frogs, 494, 579.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 208
and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of
judgment ? " l
How many, again and again I wonder, of the lively
young ecclesiastics supplied to the increasing demand of our
west ends of flourishing Cities of the Plain,2 ever consider
what sort of sin it is for which God (unless they lay it to
heart) will "curse their blessings, and spread dung upon
their faces " ; or have understood, even in the dimmest
manner, what part they had taken, and were taking, in
" corrupting the covenant of the Lord with Levi, and
causing many to stumble at the Law."3
Perhaps the most subtle and unconscious way in which
the religious teachers upon whom the ends of the world
are come,4 have done this, is in never telling their people
the meaning of the clause in the Lord's Prayer, which, of
all others, their most earnest hearers have oftenest on their
lips : " Thy will be done." They allow their people to use
it as if their Father's will were always to kill their babies,
or do something unpleasant to them, instead of explaining
to them that the first and intensest article of their Father's
will was their own sanctification and following comfort and
wealth ; and that the one only path to national prosperity
and to domestic peace, was to understand what the will of
the Lord was, and to do all they could to get it done.
Whereas one would think, by the tone of the eagerest
preachers nowadays, that they held their blessed office to
be that, not of showing men how to do their Father's will
on earth, but how to get to heaven without doing any of
it either here or there!
I say, especially, the most eager preachers; for nearly
the whole Missionary body (with the hottest Evangelistic
sect of the English Church) is at this moment composed of
men who think the Gospel they are to carry to mend the
world with, forsooth, is that, " If any man sin, he hath an
1 [Malachi ii. 17.]
z [Genesis xiii. 12.]
• [See Malachi ii. 2, 3, 8.]
* [1 Corinthians x. 11.]
204 ON THE OLD ROAD
Advocate with the Father " ; * while I have never yet, in
my own experience, met either with a Missionary or a
Town Bishop who so much as professed himself " to under-
stand what the will of the Lord " J was, far less to teach
anybody else to do it; and for fifty preachers, yes, and
fifty hundreds whom I have heard 3 proclaiming the Mediator
of the New Testament, that " they which were called might
receive the promise of eternal inheritance,"4 I have never
yet heard so much as one heartily proclaiming against all
those "deceivers with vain words" (Eph. v. 6), that "no
covetous person which is an idolater, hath any inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ, or of God " ; and on myself
personally and publicly challenging the Bishops of England
generally, and by name the Bishop of Manchester, to say
whether usury was, or was not, according to the will of
God, I have received no answer from any one of them.*
1 3th August (ending Letter of August 9).
I have allowed myself, in the beginning of this letter,
to dwell on the equivocal use of the word " Priest " in the
English Church (see Christopher Harvey, Grosart's edition,
p. 38 6), because the assumption of the mediatorial, in defect
* Fors Clavigera, Letter Ixxxii., p. 323. 6
i [1 John ii. 1.]
* I See Proverbs ii. 5.]
3 [For a note by Ruskin on tins passage, see the Epilogue ; below, p. 217 n.]
4 i Hebrews ix. 15.]
5 [See No. 24 ("The Priest") in Christopher Harvey's The Synagogue: —
" The Priest I say ; the Presbyter I mean
As now-a-daies he's call'd
By many men ; but I choose to retain
The name wherewith instal'd
He was at first in our own mother tongue ;
And doing so, I hope I do no wrong."
Quoted from The Fuller Worthies' Library. The Complete Poems of Christopher Harvey,
being a supplementary vol. to the complete works of George Herbert, edited by
A. B. Grosart, 1874. Ruskin quotes the first line in Fors Clavigera, Letter 49
(Vol. XXVIII. p. 241).]
* [The reference is to the first edition : see now Vol. XXIX. pp. 243-244.
Ruskin did not appeal to the Bishop by his personal name, but to the Bishop of
Manchester specifically : on this point, see below, p. 406. On seeing this passage
in the Contemporary Review, the Bishop sent the reply which is given below,
p. 401.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 205
of the pastoral, office by the clergy fulfils itself, naturally
and always, in their pretending to absolve the sinner from
his punishment, instead of purging him from his sin; and
practically, in their general patronage and encouragement
of all the iniquity of the world, by steadily preaching away
the penalties of it. So that the great cities of the earth,
which ought to be the places set on its hills, with the
Temple of the Lord in the midst of them, to which the
tribes should go up,1 — centres to the Kingdoms and Pro-
vinces of Honour, Virtue, and the Knowledge of the law
of God, — have become, instead, loathsome centres of forni-
cation and covetousness — the smoke of their sin going up
into the face of heaven like the furnace of Sodom, and the
pollution of it rotting and raging through the bones and
the souls of the peasant people round them, as if they were
each a volcano whose ashes broke out in blains upon man
and upon beast.
And in the midst of them, their freshly-set-up steeples
ring the crowd to a weekly prayer that the rest of their
lives may be pure and holy,2 while they have not the
slightest intention of purifying, sanctifying, or changing their
lives in any the smallest particular; and their clergy gather,
each into himself, the curious dual power, and Janus-faced
majesty in mischief, of the prophet that prophesies falsely,
and the priest that bears rule by his means.
And the people love to have it so.8
BRANTWOOD.
I am very glad of your little note from Brighton. I
thought it needless to send the two letters there, which
you will find at home ; and they pretty nearly end all /
want to say ; for the remaining clauses of the prayer touch
on things too high for me.4 But I will send you one
concluding letter about them.
1 [Compare the Preface to Xenophon's Economist, Vol. XXXI. p. 9; and for
the Biblical phrases, see Matthew v. 14, and Psalms cxxii. 4.]
* [See the Absolution iu the Book of Common Prayer.]
3 [Jeremiah v. 31. ~
[Psalms cxxxi
fVJ
206 ON THE OLD ROAD
LETTER IX1
rbv aprov -YIILWV rbv eiriovcriov Sbs
Panem nostrum quottdianum da nobis hodte.
BRANTWOOD, \Qth August.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I retained the foregoing letter
by me till now, lest you should think it written in any haste
or petulance : but it is every word of it deliberate, though
expressing the bitterness of twenty years of vain sorrow and
pleading concerning these things. Nor am I able to write,
otherwise, anything of the next following clause of the
prayer; — for no words could be burning enough to tell the
evils which have come on the world from men's using it
thoughtlessly and blasphemously, praying God to give them
what they are deliberately resolved to steal. For all true
Christianity is known — as its Master was — in breaking of
bread,2 and all false Christianity in stealing it.
Let the clergyman only apply — with impartial and level
sweep — to his congregation the great pastoral order: "The
man that will not work, neither should he eat ; " 3 and be
resolute in requiring each member of his flock to tell him
what — day by day — they do to earn their dinners ; — and he
will find an entirely new view of life and its sacraments
open upon him and them.
For the man who is not — day by day — doing work
which will earn his dinner, must be stealing his dinner ;
and the actual fact is, that the great mass of men calling
themselves Christians do actually live by robbing the poor*
1 [No. 19 in the synopsis ; above, p. 185.]
2 [Luke xxiv. 35.]
3 [2 Thessalonians iii. 10 : also quoted, and enforced, in A Joy for Ever, § 145
(Vol. XVI. p. 130), and Sesame and Lilies, § 136 (Vol. XVIII. p. 182). See also
Vol. XXXIII. p. Ixii.]
* [See Proverbs xxii. 22. For a reference by Ruskiri to this passage of the
Letter, see the Epilogue, below, p. 229.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 207
of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever ; and the
simple examination of the mode of the produce and con-
sumption of European food — who digs for it, and who eats
it — will prove that to any honest human soul.
Nor is it possible for any Christian Church to exist
but in pollutions and hypocrisies beyond all words, until
the virtues of a life moderate in its self-indulgence, and
wide in its offices of temporal ministry to the poor, are
insisted on as the normal conditions in which, only, the
prayer to God for the harvest of the earth is other than
blasphemy.
In the second place. Since in the parable in Luke
the bread asked for is shown to be also, and chiefly, the
Holy Spirit (Luke xi. 13), and the prayer, " Give us each
day our daily bread " is, in its fulness, the disciples' " Lord,
evermore give us this bread,"1 — the clergyman's question to
his whole flock, primarily literal, " Children, have ye here
any meat?" must ultimately be always the greater spiritual
one : " Children, have ye here any Holy Spirit ? " or, " Have
ye not heard yet whether there be any ? and, instead of a
Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life, do you only
believe in an unholy mammon, Lord and Giver of Death ? "
The opposition between the two Lords has been, and
will be as long as the world lasts, absolute, irreconcilable,
mortal; and the clergyman's first message to his people of
this day is — if he be faithful — "Choose ye this day, whom
ye will serve."2
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [John vi. 34. The following quotations are from John xxi. 5 ; the Nicene
Creed; and Acts xix. 2 (compare Vol. XXVIII. p. 238).]
2 [Joshua xxiv. 15.]
208 ON THE OLD ROAD
LETTER X1
,' V ; ; ' • • '
KOI (tr/>f« flf*iv TO. ot/xiA/^/iaTa t'jp.tav, us Kail )}jucts dtfriffiev TOIS d^>€iX«Ttti? rffiiav.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
BRANTWOOD, 3rd September.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I have been very long before
trying to say so much as a word about the sixth clause of
the Pater; for whenever I began thinking of it, I was
stopped by the sorrowful sense of the hopeless task you
poor clergymen had, nowadays, in recommending and teach-
ing people to love their enemies,2 when their whole energies
were already devoted to swindling their friends.
But, in any days, past or now, the clause is one of
such difficulty, that, to understand it, means almost to
know the love of God which passeth knowledge.3
But, at all events, it is surely the pastor's duty to
prevent his flock from ^understanding it ; and above all
things to keep them from supposing that God's forgiveness
is to be had simply for the asking, by those who "wilfully
sin after they have received the knowledge of the truth."
There is one very simple lesson, also, needed especially
by people in circumstances of happy life, which I have
never heard fully enforced from the pulpit, and which is
usually the more lost sight of, because the fine and inac-
curate word "trespasses" is so often used instead of the
simple and accurate one, " debts." Among people well
educated and happily circumstanced, it may easily chance
that long periods of their lives pass without any such con-
scious sin as could, on any discovery or memory of it,
make them cry out, in truth and in pain, " I have sinned
against the Lord." 6 But scarcely an hour of their happy
No. 22 in the synopsis ; above, p. 185.]
Matthew v. 44.]
See Ephesians iii. 19.]
'Hebrews x. 26.]
2 Samuel xii. 13 (David to Nathan).]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 209
days can pass over them without leaving — were their hearts
open — some evidence written there that they have " left
undone the things that they ought to have done,"1 and
giving them bitterer and heavier cause to cry and cry
again — for ever, in the pure words of their Master's prayer,
" Dimitte nobis debita nostra."
In connection with the more accurate translation of
" debts," rather than " trespasses," it would surely be well
to keep constantly in the mind of complacent and in-
offensive congregations, that in Christ's own prophecy of
the manner of the last judgment, the condemnation is pro-
nounced only on the sins of omission : " I was hungry, and
ye gave Me no meat."2
But, whatever the manner of sin, by offence or defect,
which the preacher fears in his people, surely he has of
late been wholly remiss in compelling their definite recog-
nition of it, in its several and personal particulars. No-
thing in the various inconsistency of human nature is more
grotesque than its willingness to be taxed with any quantity
of sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation
of having committed the smallest parcel of them in detail.
And the English Liturgy, evidently drawn up with the
amiable intention of making religion as pleasant as possible
to a people desirous of saving their souls with no great
degree of personal inconvenience, is perhaps in no point
more unwholesomely lenient than in its concession to the
popular conviction that we may obtain the present advan-
tage, and escape the future punishment, of any sort of
iniquity, by dexterously concealing the manner of it from
man. and triumphantly confessing the quantity of it to God.
Finally, whatever the advantages and decencies of a form
of prayer, and how wide soever the scope given to its col-
lected passages, it cannot be at one and the same time
fitted for the use of a body of well-taught and experienced
1 [Compare, for this reference to the General Confession in the Book of Common
Prayer, Kuskin's "Message to Blackfriars Bible Class" (Christmas 1872); below,
p. 509.]
* [Matthew xxv. 42.]
210 ON THE OLD ROAD
Christians, such as should join the services of a Church
nineteen centuries old, — and adapted to the needs of the
timid sinner who has that day first entered its porch, or
of the remorseful publican who has only recently become
sensible of his call to a pew.
And surely our clergy need not be surprised at the
daily increasing distrust in the public mind of the efficacy
of Prayer,1 after having so long insisted on their offer-
ing supplication, at least every Sunday morning at eleven
o'clock, that the rest of their lives hereafter might be pure
and holy,2 leaving them conscious all the while that they
would be similarly required to inform the Lord next week,
at the same hour, that " there was no health in them " ! 3
Among the much rebuked follies and abuses of so-called
" Ritualism," none that I have heard of are indeed so dan-
gerously and darkly " Ritual " as this piece of authorized
mockery of the most solemn act of human life, and only
entrance of eternal life — Repentance.
Believe me, dear Mr. Malleson,
Ever faithfully and respectfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
LETTER XI4
Kal /AT) ewrtveyKT^s *}/*as eis Trei/XKr/ibv, aXAa pwat ry/xa? aVd TOU Trovqpov ' OTI
crou €(TTiv r) /3aari\.eia /cat 7) Svva/xts /cat T} 8o£a ei's TOVS aiwvas • <Z/AT)V.
£< »e «o* inducas in tentationem ; sed libera nos a malo ; Quid tuum est regnum,
potentia, et gloria in scecula sceculorum. Amen.
BRANTWOOD, 14-th September, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — The gentle words in your last
letter, referring to the difference between yourself and me
in the degree of hope with which you could regard what
jSee above, p. 115.1
[See above, p. 205.J
_From the General Confession : see Psalms xxxviii. 3.]
No. 28 in the synopsis ; above, p. 186.]
could not but appear to the general mind Utopian in
designs for the action of the Christian Church, surely
might best be answered by appeal to the consistent tone
of the prayer we have been examining.
Is not every one of its petitions for a perfect state?
and is not this last clause of it, of which we are to think
to-day — if fully understood — a petition not only for the
restoration of Paradise, but of Paradise in which there
shall be no deadly fruit, or, at least, no tempter to praise
it ? 1 And may we not admit that it is probably only for
want of the earnest use of this last petition, that not only
the preceding ones have become formal with us, but that
the private and simply restricted prayer for the little things
we each severally desire has become by some Christians
dreaded and unused, and by others used faithlessly, and
therefore with disappointment ?
And is it not for want of this special directness and
simplicity of petition, and of the sense of its acceptance,
that the whole nature of prayer has been doubted in
our hearts, and disgraced by our lips ; that we are afraid
to ask God's blessing on the earth, when the scientific
people tell us He has made previous arrangements to
curse it ; and that, instead of obeying, without fear or
debate, the plain order, " Ask, and ye shall receive, that
your joy may be full," 2 we sorrowfully sink back into
the apology for prayer, that "it is a wholesome exer-
cise, even when fruitless," and that we ought piously
always to suppose that the text really means no more
than " Ask, and ye shall not receive, that your joy may
be empty " ?
Supposing we were first all of us quite sure that we
had prayed, honestly, the prayer against temptation, and that
we would thankfully be refused anything we had set our
hearts upon, if indeed God saw that it would lead us into
1 [See Genesis iii. 5.]
2 [Johu xvi. 24.]
XXXIV. O
212 ON THE OLD ROAD
evil, might we not have confidence afterwards that He in
whose hand the King's heart is, as the rivers of water,1
would turn our tiny little hearts also in the way that they
should go, and that then the special prayer for the joys
He taught them to seek would be answered to the last
syllable, and to overflowing?
It is surely scarcely necessary to say, farther, what the
holy teachers of all nations have invariably concurred in
showing, — that faithful prayer implies always correlative
exertion ; and that no man can ask honestly or hopefully
to be delivered from temptation, unless he has himself
honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to
keep out of it. But, in modern days, the first aim of all
Christian parents is to place their children in circumstances
where the temptations (which they are apt to call " oppor-
tunities ") may be as great and as many as possible ; where
the sight and promise of "all these things" in Satan's gift
may be brilliantly near ; and where the act of " falling
down to worship me"2 may be partly concealed by the
shelter, and partly excused, as involuntary, by the pressure,
of the concurrent crowd.
In what respect the kingdoms of the world, and the
glory of the?n, differ from the Kingdom, the Power, and
the Glory, which are God's for ever, is seldom, as far as I
have heard, intelligibly explained from the pulpit ; and still
less the irreconcilable hostility between the two royalties
and realms asserted in its sternness of decision.
Whether it be indeed Utopian to believe that the
kingdom we are taught to pray for may come — verily come
— for the asking, it is surely not for man to judge ; but it
is at least at his choice to resolve that he will no longer
render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to the
Devil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance
towards Heaven, he may at least say to the power of Hell,
1 [Proverbs xxi. l.j
2 [Matthew iv. 9. For other Bible references in this Letter, see ibid., iv. 8 ;
xvi. 23 ; Revelation xxii. 20.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 213
" Get thee behind me " ; and staying himself on the testi-
mony of Him who saith, " Surely I come quickly," ratify
his happy prayer with the faithful " Amen, even so, come,
Lord Jesus."
Ever, my dear friend,
Believe me affectionately
and gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
EPILOGUE1
BRANTWOOD, June 1880.
1. MY DEAR MALLESON, — I have glanced at the proofs you
send ; 2 and can do no more than glance, even if it seemed
to me desirable that I should do more, — which, after said
glance, it does in no wise. Let me remind you of what
it is absolutely necessary that the readers of the book
should clearly understand — that I wrote these Letters at
your request, to be read and discussed at the meeting of
a private society of clergymen. I declined then to be
present at the discussion, and I decline still. You after-
wards asked leave to print the Letters, to which I replied
that they were yours, for whatever use you saw good to
make of them : afterwards your plans expanded, while my
own notion remained precisely what it had been — that the
discussion should have been private, and kept within the
limits of the society, and that its conclusions, if any,
should have been announced in a few pages of clear print,
for the parishioners' exclusive reading.
I am, of course, flattered by the wider course you
have obtained for the Letters, but am not in the slightest
degree interested by the debate upon them, nor by any
religious debates whatever, undertaken without serious con-
viction that there is a jot wrong in matters as they are,
or serious resolution to make them a tittle better. Which,
so far as I can read the minds of your correspondents,
appears to me the substantial state of them.
2. One thing I cannot pass without protest — the quantity
[No. 52 in the synopsis ; see p. 187.]
2 [That is, the proofs of the comments upon Raskin's Letters which Mr. Malleson
had collected for publication : see above, p. 181.]
215
216 ON THE OLD ROAD
of talk about the writer of the Letters. What I am, or
am not, is of no moment whatever to the matters in
hand. I observe with comfort, or at least with complacency,
that on the strength of a couple of hours' talk, at a time
when I was thinking chiefly of the weatherings of slate
you were good enough to show me above Goat's Water,
you would have ventured to baptize me in the little lake—
as not a goat, but a sheep.1 The best I can be sure of,
myself, is that I am no wolf, and have never aspired to
the dignity even of a Dog of the Lord.2
You told me, if I remember rightly, that one of the
members of the original meeting denounced me as an arch-
heretic — meaning, doubtless, an arch-pagan ; for a heretic,
or sect-maker, is of all terms of reproach the last that can
be used of me. And I think he should have been answered
that it was precisely as an arch-pagan that I ventured to
request a more intelligible and more unanimous account of
the Christian Gospel from its preachers.
3. If anything in the Letters offended those of you
who hold me a brother, surely it had been best to tell me
between ourselves, or to tell it to the Church, or to let
me be Anathema Maranatha in peace,3 — in any case, I
1 [The reference is to Mr. Malleson's "Essays and Comments" (pp. 2-4 of
Letters to the Clergy, ed. 1896), in which he describes how, seeking " to investi-
gate the nature of Mr. Ruskin's doubts," he had found the occasion " in a very
delightful summer afternoon on the lake, and up the sides of the Old Man of
Coniston, to view a group of remarkable rocks by the desolate, storm-beaten crags
of Goat's Water." As a result of this ramble, Mr. Malleson records ' ' the firm
conviction that neither the censorious and unthinking world, nor perhaps even Mr.
Ruskin himself, knows how deeply and truly a Christian man, in the widest sense
of the word, Mr. Ruskiii is." Mr. Malleson refers to the occasion in the same
connexion in his Holiday Studies, 1890, p. 74, where he adds : "I had visited Mr.
Ruskin at Brantwood, and in a conversation in the drawing-room he had come
to the point that he said, ' I have already given up the Resurrection,' when the
door-bell rang, and he added, ' It is well that we are interrupted, or I might have
said things that would have pained you more still.' Shortly after came the walk
above mentioned." Ruskin refers to the same walk, though in connexion only with
the weathering on the rock, in Deucalion (Vol. XXVI. p. 255 n.). In view of
what Ruskin says on ' ' the doctrine of the Resurrection " in The Art of England
(Vol. XXXIII. p. 276), at the close 7of the Preface to Prceterita, and in many other
places, it can hardly be doubted that Mr. Malleson either inaccurately reported
or failed to understand Ruskin's conversation.]
2 [See Fors Clavigera, Letter 62, title and § 4 (Vol. XXVIII. pp. 611. 514).]
3 [Matthew xviii. 17 ; 1 Corinthians xvi. 22.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 217
must at present so abide, correcting only the mistakes
about myself which have led to graver ones about the
things I wanted to speak of.*
The most singular one, perhaps, in all the Letters
is that of Mr. Wanstall's, that I do not attach enough
weight to antiquity.1 I have only come upon the sentence
to-day (29th May), but my reply to it is partly written
already, with reference to the wishes of some other of
your correspondents to know more of my reasons for find-
ing fault with the English Liturgy.
4. If people are taught to use the Liturgy rightly and
reverently, it will bring them all good ; and for some
thirty years of my life I used to read it always through
* I may perhaps be pardoned for vindicating at least my arithmetic,
which, with Bishop Colenso, I rather pride myself upon. One of your
correspondents greatly doubts my having heard five thousand assertors of
evangelical principles2 (Catholic-absolvent or Protestant-detergent are virtu-
ally the same). I am now sixty years old, and for forty-five of them was
in church at least once on the Sunday, — say once a month also in after-
noons,— and you have above three thousand church services. When I am
abroad I am often in half-a-dozen churches in the course of a single day,
and never lose a chance of listening to anything that is going on. Add
the conversations pursued, not unearnestly, with every sort of reverend
person I can get to talk to me — from the Bishop of Strasburg (as good a
specimen of a town bishop as I have known), with whom I was study-
ing ecstatic paintings in the year 1850,3 down to the simplest travelling
tinker inclined Gospelwards, whom I perceive to be sincere, — and your
correspondent will perceive that my rapid numerical expression must be
far beneath the truth. He subjoins his more rational doubt of my
acquaintance with many town missionaries ; to which I can only answer,
that as I do not live in town, nor set up for a missionary myself, my
spiritual advantages have certainly not been great in that direction. I
simply assert that of the few I have known, — beginning with Mr. Spurgeon,
under whom I sat with much edification for a year or two,4 — I have not
known any such teaching as I speak of.
1 [A letter from the Rev. E. Forster Wanstall (on pp. 327, 328 of Mr. Malleson's
book, ed. of 1880), who, inter alia, said, " In matters of theology Mr. Ruskin does
not sufficiently attach weight to antiquity, or realise how much error is prevented
by a creed." In the ed. of 1896 Mr. Wanstall's namo was left blank, and his letter
was not included.]
1 [See above, p. 204.]
* [At Venice.]
4 [Compare Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 31 ; below, p. 29(5 «.]
218 ON THE OLD ROAD
to my servant and myself,1 if we had no Protestant church
to go to, in Alpine or Italian villages. One can always
tacitly pray of it what one wants, and let the rest pass.
But, as I have grown older, and watched the decline in
the Christian faith of all nations, I have got more and
more suspicious of the effect of this particular form of
words on the truthfulness of the English mind (now fast
becoming a salt which has lost his savour, and is fit only
to be trodden under foot of men 2). And during the last
ten years, in which my position at Oxford has compelled
me to examine what authority there was for the code of
prayer, of which the University is now so ashamed that it
no more dares compel its youths so much as to hear, much
less to utter it,3 I got necessarily into the habit of always
looking to the original forms of the prayers of the fully
developed Christian Church. Nor did I think it a mere
chance which placed in my own possession a manuscript
of the perfect Church service of the thirteenth century,
written by the monks of the Sainte Chapelle for St. Louis ; 4
together with one of the same date, written in England,
probably for the Diocese of Lincoln ; adding some of the
Collects, in which it corresponds with St. Louis's, and the
Latin hymns so much beloved by Dante,5 with the ap-
pointed music for them.
5. And my wonder has been greater every hour, since
I examined closely the text of these and other early books,
that in any state of declining, or captive, energy, the
Church of England should have contented itself with a
service which cast out, from beginning to end, all these in-
tensely spiritual and passionate utterances of chanted prayer
(the whole body, that is to say, of the authentic Christian
Compare Praeterita, ii. § 111.]
[Matthew v. 13.]
'The action was that of Parliament, not of the University, the Universities
Tests Act of 1871 having abolished all compulsory attendance at public worship.]
4 [For the correct description of this Book of Private Devotions (here somewhat
inaccurately described by Ruskin), see the monograph referred to in Vol. XXI.
p. 15 n. ; and for other references to it, see Vol. XII. pp. Ixix., 479, and Vol. XXVI.
p. 189.]
6 [See Vol. XXVIII. p. 452.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 219
Psalms), and, in adopting what it timidly preserved of the
Collects, mangled or blunted them down to the exact
degree which would make them either unintelligible or
inoffensive — so vague that everybody might use them, or
so pointless that nobody could be offended by them.1 For
a special instance : The prayer for " our bishops and curates,
and all congregations committed to their charge," is, in the
Lincoln Service-book, "for our bishop, and all congrega-
tions committed to his charge." The change from singular
to plural seems a slight one. But it suffices to take the
eyes of the people off their own bishop into infinite space ;
to change a prayer which was intended to be uttered in
personal anxiety and affection, into one for the general
good of the Church, of which nobody could judge, and
for which nobody would particularly care ; and, finally, to
change a prayer to which the answer, if given, would be
visible, into one of which nobody could tell whether it were
answered or not.
6. In the Collects, the change, though verbally slight,
is thus tremendous in issue. But in the Litany — word
and thought go all wild together. The first prayer of the
Litany in the Lincoln Service-book is for the Pope and
all ranks beneath him, implying a very noteworthy piece
of theology — that the Pope might err in religious matters,
and that the prayer of the humblest servant of God
would be useful to him : — " Ut Dompnum Apostolicum
et omnes gradus ecclesie in sancta religione conservare
digneris."5 Meaning that whatever errors particular persons
might, and must, fall into, they prayed God to keep the
Pope right, and the collective testimony and conduct of
the ranks below him. Then follows the prayer for their
own bishop and his flock — then for the king and the
princes (chief lords), that they (not all nations3) might be
1 [Compare Fort Clavigera, Letter 58, § 1 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 417), and Preeterita,
iii. § 19.]
a [See below, pp. 231, 241.]
3 [In our Litany the prayer is, "That it may please thee to give to all nations
unity, peace, and concord."]
220 ON THE OLD ROAD
kept in concord — and then for our bishops and abbots, —
the Church of England proper ; every one of these petitions
being direct, limited, and personally heartfelt ; — and then
this lovely one for themselves : —
" Ut obsequium servitutis nostre rationabile facias." —
"That Thou wouldst make the obedience of our service
reasonable " (" which is your reasonable service " 1).
This glorious prayer is, I believe, accurately an " early
English " one. It is not in the St. Louis Litany, nor in a
later elaborate French fourteenth-century one ; but I find
it softened in an Italian MS. of the fifteenth century into
" ut nosmet ipsos in tuo sancto servitio confortare et con-
servare digneris," — "that Thou wouldst deign to keep and
comfort us ourselves in Thy sacred service " (the comfort,
observe, being here asked for whether reasonable or not !) ;
and in the best and fullest French service-book I have,
printed at Rouen in 1520, it becomes, "ut congregationes
omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitio conservare dig-
neris," while victory as well as concord is asked for the
king and the princes, — thus leading the way to that for
our own Queen's victory over all her enemies,2 a prayer
which might now be advisedly altered into one that she —
and in her, the monarchy of England — might find more
fidelity in their friends.3
7. I give one more example of the corruption of our
Prayer-Book, with reference to the objections taken by
some of your correspondents4 to the distinction implied in
my Letters between the Persons of the Father and the
Christ.
1 [Romans xii. 1.]
2 ["Strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies"
(Prayer for the Queen's Majesty).]
3 [Compare below, pp. 329, 602; and Vol. XXVII. p. 165 «.]
4 [The Rev. H. N. Grimley, for instance, asked "whether Mr. Ruskin, after
(in Letter V.) speaking with condemnation of a plan of salvation which sets forth
the Divine Son as appeasing the wrath of the Father in heaven, does not himself
give expression to words, as to the love of the Father, which almost imply that
in his estimation the Divine mind is not in unity in itself?" (p. 227, ed. 1880).
So also Mr. James Lewis objects to the same Letter that "it is impossible to
dissociate Jesus Christ from God" (p. 252).]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 221
The " Memoria de Sancta Trinitate," in the St. Louis
service-book, runs thus: —
" Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione
vere fidei eterne Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis
adorare unitatem, quesumus ut ejus fidei firmitate ab omnibus semper
muniemur adversis. Qui vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia secula seculorum.
Amen."
" Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given to Thy servants, in
confession of true faith to recognize the glory of the Eternal Trinity, and
in the power of Majesty to pray to the Unity; we ask that by the firm-
ness of that faith we may be always defended from all adverse things.
Who livest and reignest God through all ages. Amen."
8. Turning to our Collect,1 we find we have first slipped
in the word " us " before " Thy servants," and by that little
insertion have slipped in the squire and his jockey, and the
public-house landlord — and any one else who may chance
to have been coaxed, swept, or threatened into church on
Trinity Sunday, and required the entire company of them
to profess themselves servants of God, and believers in the
mystery of the Trinity. And we think we have done God
a service !
" Grace." Not a word about grace in the original.
You don't believe by having grace, but by having wit.
"To acknowledge." "Agnosco" is to recognize, not to
acknowledge. To see that there are three lights in a chan-
delier is a great deal more than to acknowledge that they
are there.
" To worship." " Adorare " is to pray to, not to worship.
You may worship a mere magistrate ; but you pray to the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The last sentence in the English is too horribly mutilated
to be dealt with in any patience. The meaning of the
great old collect is that by the shield of that faith we may
quench all the fiery darts of the devil.2 The English prayer
1 [" Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace
by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity,
and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity ; We beseech thee,
tbat thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from
all adversities, who livest and reignest ; one God, world without end. Amen."]
3 [Ephesians vi. 16.]
222 ON THE OLD ROAD
means, if it means anything, " Please keep us in our faith
without our taking any trouble ; and, besides, please don't
let us lose our money, nor catch cold."
" Who livest and reignest." Right ; but how many of
any extant or instant congregations understand what the
two words mean ? That God is a living God, not a dead
Law ; and that He is a reigning God, putting wrong things
to rights, and that, sooner or later, with a strong hand and
a rod of iron ; l and not at all with a soft sponge and warm
water, washing everybody as clean as a baby every Sunday
morning, whatever dirty work they may have been about
all the week.
9. On which latter supposition your modern Liturgy, in
so far as it has supplemented instead of corrected the old one,
has entirely modelled itself, — producing in its first address
to the congregation before the Almighty precisely the fault-
fullest and foolishest piece of English language that I know
in the whole compass of English or American literature.
In the seventeen lines of it (as printed in my old-fashioned,
large-print Prayer-Book), there are, seven times over, two
words for one idea: —
1. Acknowledge and confess. 5. Assemble and meet.
2. Sins and wickedness. 6. Requisite and necessary.
3. Dissemble nor cloke. 7. Pray and beseech.
4. Goodness and mercy.
There is, indeed, a shade of difference in some of these
ideas for a good scholar, none for a general congregation ; 2
and what difference they can guess at merely muddles their
1 [Psalms ii. 9.]
8 ["The only explanation ever offered for this exuberant wordiness is that if
worshippers did not understand one term they would the other, and in some
cases, in the Exhortation and elsewhere, one word is of Latin and the other of
Saxon derivation. The repetition of synonymous terms is of very frequent occur-
rence in sixteenth-century writing, as ' for ever and aye/ ' Time and the hour
run through the roughest day ' (Macbeth, Act i. sc. 3). But this is surely a very
feehle excuse for bad composition. Of a very different kind is that beautiful climax
which is reached in the three admirably chosen pairs of words in the Prayer for
the Parliament, ( peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety."'
(F. A. M.).]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 223
heads : to acknowledge sin is indeed different from con-
fessing it, but it cannot be done at a minute's notice ; and
goodness is a different thing from mercy, but it is by no
means God's infinite goodness that forgives our badness, but
that judges it.
10. "The faultfullest," I said, "and the foolishest."
After using fourteen words where seven would have done,
what is it that the whole speech gets said with its much
speaking? This Morning Service of all England begins
with the assertion that "the Scripture moveth us in sundry
places to confess our sins before God." Does it so ? Have
your congregations ever been referred to those sundry
places ? Or do they take the assertion on trust, or remain
under the impression that, unless with the advantage of
their own candour, God must remain ill-informed on the
subject of their sins ?
" That we should not dissemble nor cloke them." Can
we then ? Are these grown-up congregations of the en-
lightened English Church in the nineteenth century still
so young in their nurseries that the " Thou, God, seest
me " l is still not believed by them if they get under
the bed?
11. Let us look up the sundry moving passages re-
ferred to.
(I suppose myself a simple lamb of the flock, and only
able to use my English Bible.)
I find in my concordance (confess and confession to-
gether) forty-two occurrences of the word. Sixteen of these,
including John's confession that he was not the Christ, and
the confession of the faithful fathers that they were pil-
grims on the earth,2 do indeed move us strongly to confess
Christ before men. Have you ever taught your congrega-
tions what that confession means? They are ready enough
to confess Him in church, that is to say, in their own
private synagogue. Will they in Parliament ? Will they
1 [Genesis xvi. 13.1
1 [John i. 20; Hebrews xi. 13.]
224 ON THE OLD ROAD
in a ball-room ? Will they in a shop ? Sixteen of the
texts are to enforce their doing that.
The next most important one (1 Tim. vi. 13) refers to
Christ's own good confession, which I suppose was not of
His sins, but of His obedience. How many of your con-
gregations can make any such kind of confession, or wish
to make it ?
The eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth (1 Kings viii.
33, 2 Chron. vi. 26, Heb. xiii. 15) speak of confessing
thankfully that God is God (and not a putrid plasma nor
a theory of development), and the twenty-first (Job xl. 14)
speaks of God's own confession, that no doubt we are the
people, and that wisdom shall die with us, and on what
conditions He will make it.
12. There remain twenty-one texts which do speak of
the confession of our sins — very moving ones indeed — and
Heaven grant that some day the British public may be
moved by them.
(1.) The first is Lev. v. 5, "He shall confess that he
hath sinned in that thing" And if you can get any soul
of your congregation to say he has sinned in anijihing, he
may do it in two words for one if he likes, and it will yet
be good liturgy.
(2.) The second is indeed general — Lev. xvi. 21 : the
command that the whole nation should afflict its soul on
the great day of atonement once a year.1 The Church of
England, I believe, enjoins no such unpleasant ceremony.
Her festivals are passed by her people often indeed in the
extinction of their souls, but by no means in their inten-
tional affliction.
(3, 4, 5.) The third, fourth, and fifth (Lev. xxvi.
40, Numb. v. 7, Nehem. i. 6) refer all to national humi-
liation for definite idolatry, accompanied with an entire
abandonment of that idolatry, and of idolatrous persons.
1 [See verses 29, 30 in the same chapter : " And this shall be a statute for
ever unto you, that hi the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye
shall afflict your souls. . . . For on that day shall the priest make an atonement
for you."]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 225
How soon that form of confession is likely to find a place
in the English congregations the defences of their main
idol, mammon, in the vilest and cruellest shape of it —
usury — with which this book1 has been defiled, show very
sufficiently.
(6.) The sixth is Psalm xxxii. 5 — virtually the whole of
that psalm, which does, indeed, entirely refer to the greater
confession, once for all opening the heart to God, which
can be by no means done fifty-two times a year, and which,
once done, puts men into a state in which they will never
again say there is no health in them ; 2 nor that their hearts
are desperately wicked ; 3 but will obey for ever the instantly
following order, " Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and
shout for joy, all ye that are true of heart."
(7.) The seventh (Acts xxiv. 14) is the one confession
in which I can myself share : — " After the way which they
call heresy, so worship I the Lord God of my fathers."
(8.) The eighth (James v. 16) tells us to confess our
faults — not to God, but "one to another" — a practice not
favoured by English catechumens — (by the way, what do
you all mean by "auricular" confession — confession that
can be heard ? and is the Protestant pleasanter form one
that can't be ?)
(9.) The ninth is that passage of St. John (i. 9), the
favourite evangelical text, which is read and preached by
thousands of false preachers every day, without once going
on to read its great companion, " Beloved, if our heart
condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth
all things ; but if our heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God." Make your people understand
the second text, and they will understand the first. At
present you leave them understanding neither.
1 [That is, the book containing Essays and Comments on Ruskiu's Letters by
Mr. Malleson's correspondents.]
2 [In the General Confession : see above, p. 210.]
3 [Jeremiah xvii. 9 ; the next quotation (made from memory, and not textually)
is from Psalms xxxii. 11, "instantly following" verse 5: "I acknowledged my sin
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, 1 will confess my transgres-
sions uuto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."]
226 ON THE OLD ROAD
13. And the entire body of the remaining texts is
summed in Joshua vii. 19 and Ezra x. 11, in which, whether
it be Achan, with his Babylonish garment, or the people of
Israel, with their Babylonish lusts, the meaning of confes-
sion is simply what it is to every brave boy, girl, man, and
woman, who knows the meaning of the word " honour "
before God or man — namely, to say what they have done
wrong, and to take the punishment of it (not to get it
blanched over by any means), and to do it no more —
which is so far from being a tone of mind generally enforced
cither by the English, or any other extant Liturgy, that,
though all my maids are exceedingly pious, and insist on
the privilege of going to church as a quite inviolable one,
I think it a scarcely to be hoped for crown and consum-
mation of virtue in them that they should tell me when
they have broken a plate ; and I should expect to be
met only with looks of indignation and astonishment if
I ventured to ask one of them how she had spent her
Sunday afternoon.
" Without courage," said Sir Walter Scott, " there is
no truth ; and without truth there is no virtue." l The
sentence would have been itself more true if Sir Walter
had written " candour " for " truth," for it is possible to be
true in insolence, or true in cruelty. But in looking back
from the ridges of the Hill Difficulty2 in my own past life,
and in all the vision that has been given me of the wander-
ings in the ways of others — this, of all principles, has become
to me surest — that the first virtue to be required of man
is frankness of heart and lip : and I believe that every
youth of sense and honour, putting himself to faithful
question, would feel that he had the devil for confessor, if
he had not his father or his friend.
14. That a clergyman should ever be so truly the
1 [See Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 191 (ed. 1, 1837), vol. iii. p. 110 (ed.
1869, where in Ruskin's copy the passage is doubly marked by him). The words
are quoted also in Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 117 (below, p. 386).]
2 ["The narrow way lay right up the Hill, and the name of the going up the
side of the Hill is called Difficulty " (Pilgrim's Progress).']
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 227
friend of his parishioners as to deserve their confidence
from childhood upwards, may be flouted as a sentimental
ideal ; but he is assuredly only their enemy * in showing his
Lutheran detestation of the sale of indulgences by broad-
casting these gratis from his pulpit.
The inconvenience and unpleasantness of a catechism
concerning itself with the personal practice, as well as the
general theory, of duty are indeed perfectly conceivable by
me : yet I am not convinced that such manner of catechism
would therefore be less medicinal ; and during the past ten
years it has often been matter of amazed thought with me,
while our President at Corpus read prayers to the chapel
benches, what might by this time have been the effect on
the learning as well as the creed of the University, if, forty
years ago, our stern old Dean Gaisford,2 of the House of
Christ, instead of sending us to chapel as to the house of
correction, when we missed a lecture, had inquired, before
he allowed us to come to chapel at all, whether we were
gamblers, harlot-mongers, or in concealed and selfish debt.
15. I observe with extreme surprise in the preceding
letters the unconsciousness of some of your correspondents,
that there ever was such a thing as discipline in the
Christian Church. Indeed, the last wholesome instance of
it I can remember was when my own great-great uncle
Maitland3 lifted Lady from his altar-rails, and led her
back to her seat before the congregation, when she offered
to take the Sacrament, being at enmity with her son.*
* In some of the country districts of Scotland the right of the Church to
interfere with the lives of private individuals is still exercised. Only two
years ago, a wealthy gentleman farmer was rebuked by the " Kirk Session "
of the Dissenting Church to which he belonged, for infidelity to his wife.
At the Scottish half-yearly Communion the ceremony of " fencing the
tables" used to be observed; that is, turning away all those whose lives
were supposed to have made them unfit to receive the Sacrament.
1 The MS. adds, "and an ally of their eternal enemy."]
a See Praterita, i. §§ 213, 219, 230.]
8 Raskin's father's mother (Catherine Tweddale) was the daughter of the Rev.
James Tweddale, of Glenluce, and Catherine Adair, his wife ; one of whose sisters
(Mary) married the Rev. Dr. James Maitland of Sorbie. See the pedigree given in
Vol. XXXV.]
XXXIV. P
228 ON THE OLD ROAD
But I believe a few hours honestly spent by any clergyman
on his Church history would show him that the Church's
confidence in her prayer has been always exactly propor-
tionate to the strictness of her discipline ; that her present
fright at being caught praying by a chemist or an electri-
cian results mainly from her having allowed her twos and
threes gathered in the name of Christ l to become sixes and
sevens gathered in the name of Belial ; and that therefore
her now needfullest duty is to explain to her stammering
votaries, extremely doubtful as they are of the effect of
their supplications either on politics or the weather, that
although Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we
are, he had them better under command; and that while
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much, the formal and lukewarm one of an iniquitous man
availeth — much the other way.
Such an instruction, coupled with due explanation of
the nature of righteousness and iniquity, directed mainly to
those who have the power of both in their own hands,
being makers of law, and holders of property, would, with-
out any further debate, bring about a very singular change
in the position and respectability of English clergymen.
16. How far they may at present be considered as
merely the Squire's left hand, bound to know nothing of
what he is doing with his right, it is for their own con-
sciences to determine.
For instance, a friend wrote to me the other day,2
" Will you not come here ? You will see a noble duke
destroying a village as old as the Conquest, and driving
out dozens of families whose names are in Domesday
Book, because, owing to the neglect of his ancestors and
rackrenting for a hundred years, the place has fallen out of
repair, and the people are poor, and may become paupers.
A local paper ventured to tell the truth. The duke's agent
called on the editor, and threatened him with destruction
1 [Matthew xviii. 20. For following references, see James v. 17, 10.1
2 [J. A. Froude.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 229
if he did not hold his tongue." The noble duke, doubt-
less, has proper Protestant horror of auricular confession.
But suppose, instead of the local editor, the local parson
had ventured to tell the truth from his pulpit, and even to
intimate to his Grace that he might no longer receive the
Body and Blood of the Lord at the altar of that parish !
The parson would scarcely — in these days — have been there-
fore made bonfire of, and had a pretty martyr's memorial
by Mr. Scott's pupils ; l but he would have lighted a
goodly light, nevertheless, in this England of ours, whose
pettifogging piety has now neither the courage to deny a
duke's grace in its church, nor to declare Christ's in its
Parliament.
17. Lastly. Several of your contributors, I observe,
have rashly dipped their feet in the brim of the water2 of
that raging question of Usury; and I cannot but express
my extreme regret that you should yourself have yielded
to the temptation of expressing opinions which you have
had no leisure either to found or to test.3 My assertion,
however, that the rich lived mainly by robbing the poor,4
referred not to Usuiy, but to Rent; and the facts respect-
ing both these methods of extortion are perfectly and
indubitably ascertainable by any person who himself wishes
to ascertain them, and is able to take the necessary time
and pains. I see no sign, throughout the whole of these
letters, of any wish whatever, on the part of one of their
writers, to ascertain the facts, but only to defend practices
which they hold to be convenient in the world, and are
afraid to blame in their congregations. Of the presumption
with which several of the writers utter their notions on
the subject, I do not think it would be right to speak
1 [For other references to the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford to commemorate
the burning of Ridley, Latimer, and Cr'anmer, see Vol. IX. p. 210. Ruskiu goes
on to refer to Latimer's words at the stake : " Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,
and play the man ; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England,
as I trust shall never be put out."]
2 [Joshua iii. 15.]
* [The reference is to Mr. Malleson's "Comments" (pp. 95-112 in ed. 0) upon
Letter IX., in which he criticised Ruskiii's view of ' ' usury."]
4 [See Letter IX. ; above, p. 206.]
230 ON THE OLD ROAD
farther, in an epilogue to which there is no reply, in the
terms which otherwise would have been deserved.
18. In their bearing on other topics, let me earnestly
thank you (so far as my own feelings may be permitted
voice in the matter) for the attention with which you have
examined, and the courage with which you have ratified, or
at least endured, letters which could not but bear at first
the aspect of being written in a hostile — sometimes even in
a mocking — spirit. That aspect is untrue, nor am I answer-
able for it : the things of which I had to speak could not
be shortly described but in terms which might sound satiri-
cal ; for all error, if frankly shown, is precisely most ridicu-
lous when it is most dangerous, and I have written no word
which is not chosen as the exactest for its occasion, whether
it move sigh or smile. In my earlier days I wrote much with
the desire to please, and the hope of influencing the reader.
As I grow older and older, I recognize the truth of the
Preacher's saying, "Desire shall fail, and the mourners go
about the streets " ; l and I content myself with saying, to
whoso it may concern, that the thing is verily thus, whether
they will hear or whether they will forbear.2 No man
more than I has ever loved the places where God's honour
dwells,3 or yielded truer allegiance to the teaching of His
evident servants. No man at this time grieves more for
the danger of the Church which supposes him her enemy,
while she whispers procrastinating pax vobiscum in answer
to the spurious kiss of those who would fain toll curfew
over the last fires of English faith, and watch the sparrow
find nest where she may lay her young,4 around the altars
of the Lord.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Ecclesiastes xii. 5.]
2 [Ezekiel ii. 5. Compare what Ruskin says about the change in his style, in
Fors Clavlgera, Letter 23 (Vol. XXVII. p. 400).]
3 [Psalms xxvi. 8.]
4 [Psalms Ixxxiv. 3 : for a note on this verse, see Rock Honeycomb, Vol. XXXI.
p. 314.]
APPENDIX
I. A LATIN LITANY i
[MR. RUSKIN having kindly entrusted me with his valuable English thir-
teenth-century MS. service book, referred to on p. 218, I have thought it
would be interesting to the readers of this volume to see a little more in
detail some of the origins of our Litany and Collects. I think it will be
owned that our Reformers failed to mend some of them in the trans-
lation. I am quite unversed in the reading of ancient MSS., but I hope
the following, with the translation, will not be found incorrect. I have
preserved neither the contractions nor the responses repeated after each
petition, and have changed the mediaeval "e" into " ae," as " terre " into
" terras."— F. A. M.]
Ut dompnum apostolicum et omnes gradus ecclesiae in sancta religione conser-
vare digueris.
Te rogamus, audi nos, Domine.
Ut episcopura nostrum et gregem sibi commissum conservare digneris.
Te rogamus. . . .
Ut regi nostro et principibus nostris pacem et veram concordiam atque victoriam,
doiiare digneris.
Ut episcopos et abbates nostros et congregationes illis commissas in sancta re-
ligione conservare digneris.
Ut congregationes omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitio conservare digneris.
Ut cunctum populum Christianum precioso sanguine tuo couservare digneris.
Ut omnibus benefactoribus nostris sempiterua bona retribuas.
Ut animas nostras et parentum nostrorum ab eterna dampnatione eripias.
Ut mentes nostras ad celestia desideria erigas.
Ut obsequium servitutis nostree rationabile facias.
Ut locum istum et omnes habitantes in eo visitare et consolari digneris.
Ut fructus terra; dare et conservare digneris.
Ut inimicos sanctse Dei ecclesise comprimere digneris.
Ut oculos misericordiae tuse super nos reducere digneris.
Ut miserias pauperum et captivorum intueri et relevare digneris.
Ut omnibus ndelibus defunctis requiem eternam dones.
Ut nos exaudire digneris.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Parce nobi* Domine.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Ejcaudi nos.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Miserere nobis.
Deus cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere suscipe deprecationem nostram
et quos delictorum cathena constringit misericordia tuae pietatis absolvas, per Jesum
Christum.
1 [Here reprinted from issue 6 (1896) of Letters to the Clergy, pp. 326-332.]
231
232 ON THE OLD ROAD
Ecclesise tuae Domine, preces placatus admitte ut destructis adversitatibus uni-
versis secura tibi serviat libertate.
Omnipoteus sempiterne Deus qui facis mirabilia magna solus pretende super
famulum tuum episcopum nostrum et super cunctas congregationes illi commissas
spiritum gratiae tuae salutaris et ut in veritate tibi complaceant perpetuum eis rorem
tuse benedictionis infunde, per Jesum.
Deus in cujus maim corda sunt regum qui es humilium consolator et fidelium
fortitude et protector omnium in te sperantium, da regi nostro et reginas populoque
Christiano, triumphum virtutis tuse scienter excolere, ut per te semper reparentur
ad veniam.
Pretende Domiue et famulis et famulabus tuis dexteram celestis auxilii ut te
toto corde propinquant atque digne postulationes assequantur.
Deus a quo sancta desideria recta consilia et justa sunt opera, da servis tuis
illam quam mundus dare non potest pacem ut et corda nostra mandatis tuis et
hostium ublata formidine tempora sint tua protectione tranquilla. *
lire igne sancti spiritus renes nostros et cor nostrum, Domine, ut tibi corde
casto serviamus et mundo corpore placeamus.
TRANSLATION
That it may please Thee to keep the apostolic lord (i.e. the Pope) and all ranks
of the Church in Thy holy religion.
0 Lord, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee to keep our bishop, and the flock committed to him.
That it may please Thee to give to our king and our princes (or chief lords),
peace, and true concord, and victory.
That it may please Thee to keep our bishops and abbots, and the congrega-
tions committed to them, in holy religion.
That it may please Thee to keep the congregations of all saints in Thy holy
service.
That it may please Thee to keep the whole Christian people with Thy precious
blood.
That it may please Thee to requite all our benefactors with everlasting blessings.
That it may please Thee to preserve our souls and the souls of our kindred
from eternal damnation.
That it may please Thee that Thou wouldest lift up our hearts to heavenly
desires.
That it may please Thee to make the obedience of our service reasonable.
That it may please Thee to visit and to comfort this place, and all who
dwell in it.
That it may please Thee to give and preserve the fruits of the earth.
That it may please Thee to restrain the enemies of the Holy Church of God.
That it may please Thee to look upon us with eyes of mercy.
That it may please Thee to behold and relieve the miseries of the poor and
the prisoners.
That it may please Thee to give eternal peace to all the faithful departed.
That it may please Thee to hear us.
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world.
Spare us, 0 Lord.
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world.
Hear us, 0 Lord.
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world.
Have mercy on «*, 0 Lord.
1 [For a discussion by Ruskin of "the adulteration of this Catholic Prayer" in
the English Liturgy, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 417.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 233
O God, whose property it is always to pity and to spare, receive our supplica-
tions, and by the mercy of Thy fatherly love, loose those whom the chain of their
sins keeps bound, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
O Lord, receive with indulgence the prayers of Thy Church, that all adversities
being overcome, it may serve Thee in freedom without fear.
Almighty, Eternal God, who alone doest great wonders, grant to Thy servant
our bishop, and to all the congregations committed to him, the healthful spirit of
Thy grace ; and that they may please Thee in truth, pour out upon them the
perpetual dew of Thy blessing.
O God, in whose hand are the hearts of kings, who art the consoler of the
meek and the strength of the faithful, and the protector of all that trust in Thee,
give to our king and queen and to the Christian people wisely to manifest the
glory of Thy power, that by Thee they may ever be restored to forgiveness.
Extend, O Lord, over Thy servants and handmaidens, the right hand of Thy
heavenly aid, that they may draw near unto Thee with all their heart, and worthily
obtain their petitions.
Kindle with the fire of Thy Holy Spirit our reins and our hearts, O Lord,
that we may serve Thee with a clean heart, and please Thee with a pure body.
0 God, from whom are all holy desires, right counsels, and just works, give
unto Thy servants that peace which the world cannot give, that both our hearts
(may obey) Thy commands, and the fear of the enemy being taken away, we may
have quiet times by Thy protection.1
(Upon one of the blank leaves of this MS. are some remarks upon its
probable date, signed, "J. RUSKIN. Brantwood, April 14th, 1881)": —
"The style, and pieces of inner evidence in all this book speak it
clearly of the first half of the thirteenth century. The architecture is all
round arched — the roofs of Norman simplicity — unpinnacled — the severe
and simple forms of letter are essentially Norman, and the leaf and ball
terminations of the spiral of the extremities, exactly intermediate between
the Norman and Gothic types. The ivy and geranium leaves begin to
show themselves long before the end of the thirteenth century, and there is
not a trace of them in this book." This evidence of early date, however,
is qualified by the further statement, "old styles sometimes hold on long
in provincial MSS."
1 [For versions of some of these prayers in the Book of Common Prayer, see
(1) Prayers and Thanksgivings, No. 9; (3) The prayer for clergy and people in
Morning and Evening Prayer ; and (7) The Second Collect at Evening Prayer.]
II. ADDITIONAL LETTERS
To the Rev. F. A. Malleson
[The following letters refer to those on the preceding pages or are re-
ferred to in them. The numbers in brackets refer to the synopsis (above,
pp. 184-187), where particulars of the previous publication of the letters
are given.]
(12) BBANTWOOD, CONISTON,
July 30th, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I fear I have kept the proofs1 too long, but I
wanted to look at them again. I am confirmed in my impression that the
book will do much good. But I think it would have done more if you
had written the lives of two or three of your parishioners.2 Such an
answer would I give to a painter who sent to me a picture of the Last
Supper: " You had better, it seems to me, have painted a Harvest Home."
I am gravely doubtful of the possibility, in these days, of writing or paint-
ing on such subjects, advisedly and securely. — Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
(13)
July 31st, 1879.
I have received this week the two most astonishing letters I ever yet
received in my life. And one of them is yours, read this morning — telling
me — that you don't think you could write the life of an old woman ! Yet
you think you can write the life of Christ !
If you can at all explain this state of your mind to me I will tell you
more distinctly what I think of the piece I saw. But I don't think you
will communicate the thought to your publisher ; and I never meant you
to use my former one in that manner.
Mind, a publisher thinks only of money, and I know nothing of saleable-
ness. The pause in my other letters is one of pure astonishment at you ;
which at present occupies all the time I have to spare on the subject, and
has culminated to-day. — Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.
I am so puzzled. I can scarcely think of anything else till you tell
me what you mean in the bit about being "called late."
Have you done no work in the vineyard3 "yet" then?
1 [The proofs of Mr. Malleson's Life and Work of Jesus Christ (Ward, Lock
and Co., 1880): see above, p. 202.]
* [Compare the Lectures on "The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds," § 19
(Vol. XXII. p. 601).]
3 [See Matthew xxi. 28, 29.]
234
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 235
(14)
August 2nd, 1879.
I am still simply speechless with astonishment at you. It is no ques-
tion of your right to the best I can say ; it is all at your command. But
for the present my tongue cleaves to the roof of rny mouth.1 I can only
tell you, with all the strength I have, to read and understand and believe
2 Esdras iv. 2, 20, 2 1.2
(15)
August ±th, 1879.
It is just because you undertook the task so happily, that I should
have thought you unfit to write the life of a Man of Sorrows,3 even had
he been a Man only. But your last letter, remember, claims inspiration
for your guide, and recognizes a personal call at sixty, as if the Call to
the ministry had been none, and the receiving the Holy Ghost by imposi-
tion of hands4 an empty ceremony.
In writing the life of a parishioner and in remitting or retaining their
sins 5 you would in my conception have been fulfilling your appointed work.
But I cannot conceive the claim to be a fit Evangelist without more proof
of miraculous appointment than you are conscious of. I know you to be
conscientious, yes — but I think the judicial dpom of this country is to have
conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets hardened. Why should any
letter of mine make you anxious if you had indeed conscience of in-
spiration ? — Ever affectionately yours, J. R.
(16)
August 7th.
I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters ; but it
seems to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more
respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands
contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty meet-
ings ; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully
taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical feeling
being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at all, to print
them without omission.6 And if you do not print them, to return them to
me for my own expansion and arrangement. — Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
1 [Psalms cxxxvi. 6.]
J [" Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to compre-
hend the way of the most High? . . . Then answered he me, and said, Thou hast
given a right judgment, but why judgest thou not thyself also. For like as the
ground is given unto the wood, and the sea to his floods : even so they that dwell
upon the earth may understand nothing, but that which is upon the earth : and
he only that dwelleth above the heavens, may understand the things that are above
the height of the heavens."]
» [Isaiah Iv. 3.]
4 [Acts viii. 17; and see the words in "The Ordaining of Priests" in the
Book of Common Prayer.]
• [John xx. 23.1
• [See Letter IV. (above, p. 196), where Ruskin had previously authorized omis-
sions.]
236 ON THE OLD ROAD
(18) August 9th.
I have got to work on the letters again ; it would make me nervous
to think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you
see what the first debate comes to ? 1 And in the meantime I'll finish as
best I can.
(2S) September 5th, 1879.
I shall be delighted to have the comments, though it will be well first
to have the series of letters done — the last but one is coming to-morrow.
I have only written them in the sense of your sympathy in most points,
and am sure you will make the best possible use of them.
September 13th.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I am so very grateful for your proposal to edit
the letters without further reference to me. I think that will be exactly
the right way ; and I believe I can put you at real ease in the doing of
it by explaining as I can in very few words the kind of carte-blanche I
should rejoicingly give you.
Interrupted to-day ! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter.
J. R.
(20 Sunday, September 14th.
I've nearly done the last letter, but will keep it to-morrow rather than
finish hurriedly for the earlier post. Your nice little note has just come,
and I can only say that you cannot please me better than by acting with
perfect freedom in all ways, and that I only want to see or reply to what
you wish me for the matter's sake. And surely there is no occasion for
any thought or waste of type about me personally,2 except only to express
your knowledge of my real desire for the health and power of the Church.
More than this praise you must not give me, for I have learned almost
everything I may say that I know by my errors. — Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(30) [Undated.}
I am sincerely grieved by the first part of your letter, and scarcely
like to trouble you with answer to the close. . . . Surely the first thing
to be done with the letter* is to use them as you propose, and you may
1 ["My clerical friends aud brethren must not be displeased with me if I here
mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three clergy where I proposed to
read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I was only authorized to do so by a majority
of two. I can scarcely describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters
themselves were received, — though of course not universally, in another meeting
of the same number." (F. A. M.)]
1 [See, in the Epilogue, Ruskin's comment on the talk about himself (above,
p. 216).]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 237
find fifty suggestions, made by persons or circumstances after that, worth
considering. I do not doubt that I could easily add to the bulk of MS. ;
but should then, I think, stipulate for having the book published by my
own publisher.1
(31) October 13th.
I did not get your kind and interesting letter till yesterday, and can
only write in utter haste this morning to say that I think nothing can
possibly be more satisfactory (to me personally at least) and more honour-
able than what you tell me of the wish of the meeting to have the letters
printed for their quiet consideration.2
They are entirely at your command and theirs — but don't sell the
copyright to any publisher. Keep it in your own hands, and after ex-
penses are paid of course any profits should go to the poor. Please write
during this week to me at St. George's Museum, Walkley, Sheffield.
SHEFFIELD, October Vlth, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I am sincerely interested and moved by your
history of your laborious life — and shall be entirely glad to leave the com-
pleted volume as you* property, provided always you sell it to no publisher
— but take just percentage on the editions: and provided also that an
edition be issued of the letters themselves in their present simple form
of which the profits, if any, shall be for the poor of the district. It would
lower your position in the whole matter if it could be hinted that I had
written the letters with any semi-purpose of serving my friend. On the
other hand you will have just and honourable right to the profits of the
completed edition which your labour and judgment will have made possible
and guided into the most serviceable form.
I am thankful to see that the letters read clearly and easily, and
contain all that it was in my mind to get said ; that nothing can be
possibly more right in every way than the printing and binding — nor
more courteous and firm than your preface.
Yes — there will be a chasm to cross — a tauriformis Aufidus 8 — greater
than Rubicon, and the roar of it for many a year has been heard in the
distance, through the gathering fog on earth, more loudly. The River of
Spiritual Death to this world, and entrance to Purgatory in the other,
come down to us. When will the feet of the Priests be dipped in the
still brim of the water ? 4 Jordan overflows his banks — already. — Ever
affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.
When you have got your large edition with its correspondence into
form, I should like to read the sheets as they are issued, and put merely
1 [This condition was afterwards waived : see (32).]
2 [For the first printing for private circulation, see above, p. 179.]
3 ["Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus,
Qui regna Dauni preefluit Apuli,
Quum saevit horrendamque cultis
Diluviem meditatur agris." — HOBACK, Ode«, iv. 14;
—referred to also in Vol. XVII. p. 547, and Vol. XXVI. p. 555.]
4 [Joshua iii. 15 : see above, p. 229.]
238 ON THE OLD ROAD
letters of reference, a, b, and c, to be taken up in a short epilogue. But
I don't want to do or say anything till you have all in perfect readiness
for publication. I should merely add my reference letters in the margin,1
and the shortest possible notes at the end. Please send me ten more of
these private ones for my own friends.2
(33) October 31st, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — Written contracts are all very well, but if the
contractor stops payment — where are you ? I strongly recommend you to
take patience yet awhile. The letters are yours, yes ; but I wrote them
for the sake of your society — and I think that society, of which one
member paid for the private printing,3 will have much cause of complaint
if the letters are pitched into the public highway without their answers.
I am quite sure the large book ought to be the first published.4 — Ever
affectionately yours, J. R.
(34) November 7th, 1879.
I am so glad we understand each other now and that you will carry
out your plan quietly.
I think you should correct the present little book 5 by my revise, and
print enough for whatever private circulation the members of the meeting
wish, but that it should not be made public till well after the large book
is out. For which I shall look with deepest interest.
(35) November 12M, 1879.
DEAR MR. MALLESON, — I must entirely decline, once for all, all inter-
ference with, or complicity in, the publication of those letters. They are
yours, and you must be wholly answerable to your friends and fellow-
clergymen for what you do with them. All that I choose to express of
opinion on the matter has been already given. — Affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
You need never hope for telegraphic answers from me. I never read
my letters till my day's work is done, nor answer without thought.
1 [This plan, however, was not adopted.]
2 [Here ed. 7 adds : "There is not, I think, a single misprint, except only assumed
for ashamed, p. 17, line 8 from bottom." Ultimately, however, Ruskin found other
misprints, and he substituted "accursed": see above, p. 189. In the fourth line
from the end of this letter (p. 237), ed. 6 read " in " for " to " ; and it did not
separate the postscript from the body of the letter.]
3 [The Rev. H. D. Rawnsley : see p. 179 ».]
4 [The reference is to the proposed publication of the letters in the Contemporary
Review of December 1879 : see No. 2 in the Bibliographical Note. The " large
book" is No. 3: see pp. 180, 181.]
* [That is, the privately-printed pamphlet, No. 1 in the list (p. 179). For
the few corrections, duly made from Ruskin's revise, in the Contemporary, see
p. 189.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 239
(37)
January 5th , 1880.
A Happy New Year to you. If I may judge or guess by the efforts
made to draw roe into the business, it is likely to be a busy one for you !
Will you kindly now send me back my old book on Usury ? 1 I've got a
letter (which for his lordship's sake had better never been written) from the
Bishop of Manchester, and may want to quote a word or two of my back
letter. I send the letter with my reply this month to the Contemporary.2
(38)
January 7th, 1880.
So many thanks for your kind little note and the book which I have
received quite safely ; and many more thanks for taking all the enemies'
fire off me and leaving me quiet. I've been all this morning at work
on finches and buntings ; but I must give the Bishop a turn to-morrow.
This weather takes my little wits out of me wofully ; but I am always
affectionately yours, J. R.
(39)
April 14, 1880.
Thanks for nice new proofs. I haven't found any false refei'ences, but
I didn't look. I'll have all verified by my secretary. I'm busy with an
article on modern novels 3 and don't feel a bit pious just now ; so the
responses have hung fire.
(40)
April 17.
The letters seem all very nice — I shall have very little to say about
them, except to explain what you observe and have been misunder-
stood. . . . Of course my notes shall be sent to you and added to when
you see need. But I cannot do it quickly.
(41)
May 9.
You are really very good about this, and shall have the notes (D. V?)
within a fortnight. The Scott4 could not be put off, being promised for
June 19, Nineteenth Century, and I could not do novels and sermons to-
gether. I don't think the notes will be long. The letters seem to be
mostly compliments or small objections not worth noticing.
1 [The hook, as appears from one of Mr. Malleson's " Essays and Comments "
(p. 94 iu the ed. of 1880), was John Blaxton's English Usurer, 1634 : see below,
p. 422.]
2 [See below, pp. 401-425.]
J \Fiction, Fair and Foul, ch. i. : see below, pp. 265 seq.]
4 [Ibid., ch. ii. ; below, pp. .'303 "
240 ON THE OLD ROAD
(42)
May Wth, 1880.
MY DEAR MALLESON, — Yes, the omission of the " Mr." meant much
change in all my feelings towards you and estimates of you — for which
change, believe me, I am more glad and thankful than I can well tell
you. Not but that of course I always felt your essential goodness and
tightness of mind, but I did not at all understand the scope of them.
And you will have the reward of the Visitation of the Sick,1 though
every day I am more sure of the mistake made by good people universally
— in trying to pull fallen people up — instead of keeping yet safe ones from
tumbling after them, and always spending their pains on the worst instead
of the best material.2 If they want to be able to save the lost like Christ,
let them first be sure they can say with Him, "Of those Thou gavest Me 1
have lost none."3 — Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.
The " Epilogue's " an awful bother to me in this May time ! I have
not done a word yet, but you shall have it before the week is out.
(44)
May Uth, 1880.
I've just done — yesterday — with Scott, and took up the letters4 for the
first time this morning, seriously.
I had never seen yours at all when I wrote last. I fell first on Mr. ,
whom I read with some attention, and commented on with little favour :
went on to the next, and remained content with that taste till I had done
my Scott.
I have this morning been reading your own, on which I very earnestly
congratulate you. God knows it isn't because they are friendly or compli-
mentary, but because you do see what I mean, and people hardly ever do
— and I think it needs very considerable power and feeling to forgive and
understand as you do. You have said everything 7 want to say, and much
more — except on the one point of excommunication, which will be the
chief, almost the only subject, of my final note.
I write in haste to excuse myself for my former note. — Ever affection-
ately and gratefully yours, J. RUSKIN.
(45)
May ZGth, 1880.
I'm at work on the "Epilogue," but it takes more trouble than I
expected. I see there's a letter from you which I leave unopened, for
fear there should be anything in it to put me in a bad temper, which you
might easily do without meaning it. You shall have the " Epilogue " as
soon as I can get it done ; but you won't much like it, for there are bits
1 [See Matthew xxv. 31-40.]
2 On this point, see below, p. 540 (" Blindness and Sight").]
1 See John xvii. 12.]
4 That is, the letters from various correspondents to Mr. Malleson, criticising
Ruskin's.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 241
in the Clergymen's letters that have put my bristles up. They ought
either to have said nothing about me, or known more.
I should give that rascally Bishop a dressing "au serieux," only you
wouldn't like to godfather it, so I'll keep it for somewhere else.1
(46)
June 7th, 1880.
Your letter is a relief to my mind, and shall not be taken advantage
of for more delay. The wet day or two would get all done : but I simply
can't think of anything but the sun while it shines.
And I've had second, third, and seventh thoughts about several things :
as it is coming out I believe it will be a useful contribution to the book.
I shall get it in the copyist's hand on Monday, and as it's one of my
girl secretaries, I shall be teased till it's done, so it's safe for the end of
the week (D.F.). I am sadly afraid she'll make me cut out some of the
spiciest bits : the girl secretaries are always allowed to put their pens
through anything they choose. Please drop the " Mr." ; it is a matter of
friendship, not as if there were any of different powers. God only knows
of higher and lower, and, as far as I can judge, is likely to put ministry
to the sick much above public letters.
Thanks for note of Menyanthes Trifoliata. I haven't seen it, scarcely
moving at present beyond my wood or garden.
(47)
June 13th, 1880.
You are really very good to put up with all that vicious Epilogue.
But it won't discredit you in the end, whatever it may do me. I hope
much otherwise.
I will send you to-morrow the Lincoln, or, possibly, York MS. to look
at. You will find the Litany following the Quicunque vult; and, on the
leaf marked by me 83, at the top the passage I began quotation with.2
It will need a note ; for domptnnm is, I believe, strong Yorkshire Latin
for Donum Apostolicum, not Dominum.8
The e in Ecclesie for ce is the proper form in medieval Latin.
The calendar and Litany are invaluable in their splendid lists of
English saints, and the entire book unreplaceable, so mind you lock it up
carefully !
(48)
There's a good deal of interest in the enclosed layman's letter, I think.
Would you like to print any bits of it ? I cannot quite make up my mind
if it's worth or not.
1 [This presumably refers to some episcopal comment upon Ruskin's Letters ;
Ruskin, however, did not elsewhere reply to it.]
* [That is, in the Epilogue : see above, p. 219.]
3 [It seems probable that Ruskin at first misread the MS., as no such form as
domptnum is known, whereas dompnum is common medijeval Latin for dominum,
and the words, as ultimately printed by Ruskin and Mallesou, were dominum apos-
tolicum: see pp. 219, 231.] "
242 ON THE OLD ROAD
(49)
June 25th.
DEAR MALLESON, — No, I don't want the letter printed in the least ;
but it ought to have interested you very differently. It is by a much
older man than I, who has never heard of our letters, but has been a
very useful and influential person in his own parish, and is a practical
and acceptable contributor to sporting papers.1 He is an able lawyer also,
and knows far better than I do and far better than most clergymen
know, what could really be done in their country parishes if they had
a mind.
The bit of manuscript is perfectly fac-similed by your niece, but I can't
read it : and it will be much better that you mark the places you wish
certification about, and that I then send the book up to the British
Museum, and have the whole made clear. The dompt is a very important
matter indeed.
I have got the last bit of Epilogue fairly on foot this morning, and can
promise it on Monday all well. — Ever affectionately yours, J. R.
(50)
June 27th, 1880.
The "Epilogue" is all but done to-day, and shall be sent by railway
guard to-morrow (D.F.), with a book which will further interest you and
your good secretary. It is as fine an example of the coloured print Prayer-
Book as I have seen, date 1 507, and full of examples of the way Romanism
had ruined itself at that date. But it may contain in legible form some
things of interest. I never could make out so much as its Calendar ; but
the songs about the saints and rhymed hours are very pretty. Though
the illuminations are all ridiculous and one or two frightful, most are more
or less pretty, and nearly all interesting. You can keep it any time, but
you must promise me not to show it to anybody who does not know how
to handle a book. . . .2
(51)
July . . .
I'm not in the least anxious about my MS., and shall only be glad if
you like to keep it long enough to read thoroughly. There must surely be
published copies of such extant, though, and worth inquiring after?
Partly the fine weather, partly the heat, partly a fit of Scott and Byron 3
have stopped the Epilogue utterly for the time ! You cannot be in any
hurry for it surely? There's plenty to go on printing with.
1 [No doubt Ruskin's friend, Frederick Gale, for whom see below, p. 580.]
2 [" I may mention here, once for all, that wherever there are omissions left
in Mr. Ruskin's letters, there is nothing of interest or importance in those passages
for any one but for the receiver of that letter." (F. A. M.).]
3 [See Fiction, Fair and Foul, ch. iii. ; below, p. 322.]
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH 243
I don't think you will find the n's and m's much bother ; the contrac-
tions are the great nuisance. But I do think this development of Gothic
writing one of the oddest absurdities of mankind.
The illumination of " the fool hath said in his heart," l snapping his
fingers, or more accurately making the indecent sign called "the fig" by
the Italians, is a very unusual one in this MS., and peculiarly English.
(54)
April 13th, 1881.
DEAR MALLESON, — It will be many a day before I recover yet2 — if ever
— but with caution I hope not to go wild again, and to get what power
belongs to my age slowly back. When were you in the same sort of
danger ? Let me very strongly warn you from the whirlpool edge — the
i^oing down in the middle is gloomier than I can tell you.
But I shall thankfully see you and your friend here. Visiting is out of
the question for me. I can bear no fatigue nor excitement away from my
home. I pay visits no more — anywhere (even in old times few). It is
always a great gladness to me when young students care about old books,
and I remember — as a duty — the feeling I used to have in getting a
Missal, even after I was past a good many other pleasures. You made
such good use of that book too, that I am happy in yielding to any wish
of yours about it, so your young friend 8 shall have it if he likes. The
marked price is quite a fair market one for it, though you might look and
wait long before such a book came into the market. The British Museum
people were hastily and superciliously wrong in calling it a common book.
It is not a shotvy one ; but there are few more interesting or more perfect
service books in English manuscript, and the Museum people buy cart-loads
of big folios that are not worth the shelf room. — Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(64)
BRANTWOOD, February 6th, 1883.
MY DEAR MALLESON, — I'm nearly beside myself with a sudden rush of
work on my return from abroad, and resumption of Oxford duties,4 and I
simply cannot yet think over the business of the letters, the rather that I
certainly never would re-publish most of those clergymen's letters at all.
My own were a gift to you, and I am quite ready to print them if
you like.5 — Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.
1 [Psalms xiv. 1 : for the sign of the fig, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 764 n.]
2 For lluskin's illness at this time, see Vol. XXXIII. p. xxx.]
3 ["Rev. J. R. Haslam, Vicar of Thwaites, Cumberland." (F. A. M.)]
4 [See Vol. XXXIII. p. xlv.]
5 [That is, presumably, in the reissue of 1883 : see above, p. 181.]
XXXIV.
8
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY
(1880)
[Bibliographical Note. — These letters first appeared in the Art Journal of
June (§§ 1-17) and August 1880, vol. 19 (N.S.), pp. 161-163, 225, 226,
where they were prefaced with the following note by the editor in explana-
tion of their origin : —
" We are enabled, through Mr. Ruskin's kindness, to publish this month
a series of letters to a friend upon the functions and formation of a model
Museum or Picture Gallery. As stated in our last issue (p. 157), the
question arose thus : At the distribution of the prizes to the School of
Art at Leicester by Mr. J. D. Linton and Mr. James Orrock, members of
the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the latter, after stating the
vital importance of study from nothing but the finest models, and express-
ing his regret that the present price of works of Art of the first class
rendered their attainment by schools almost prohibitory, offered drawings
by William Hunt and David Cox as a nucleus for a collection. He urged
others to follow this example, and with so much success that a few days
saw a large sum and many works of Art promised in aid of a students'
gallery. The attention of the Leicester Corporation was thereupon drawn
to the movement, and they at once endeavoured to annex the scheme to
their Museum. Failing in this, they in friendly rivalry subscribed a large
sum of money, and the question at once arose how best to dispose of it,
each naturally thinking his own ideas the best. At this juncture Mr.
Ruskin's aid was invoked by one section of the subscribers, and he replied
in a letter which, owing to its having been circulated without its context,
has been open to some misconstruction. As he was only asked, so he
only advised, what should not be done. However, the letter bore its
fruits, for both parties have had the attention of the country drawn to
their proposals, and so are now more diffident how to set about carrying
them into effect than they were before. Under these circumstances Mr.
Ruskin has been induced to set out the mode in which he considers an
Art Museum should be formed."
The letter which was " open to some misconstruction " may be found
in Arrows of the Chace, below, p. 542.
The letters were reprinted in On the Old Road, 1885, vol. i. pp. 625-640
(§§ 483-507) ; and again in the second edition of that work, 1899, vol. ii.
pp. 243-261 (§§ 192-216). Ed. 1 gave the date of the first letter wrongly
as "March 26."
A part of the last letter (here §§ 22 (in part)-24) was used again by
Ruskin, though with some rearrangement, in Fors Clavigera, Letter 95
(Vol. XXIX. pp. 509-511).
The sections are now renumbered.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY:
ITS FUNCTIONS AND ITS FORMATION
March 20th, 1880.
1. MY DEAR , If I put off writing the paper you asked
me for, till I can do it conveniently, it may hang fire till
this time next year. If you will accept a note on the
subject now and then, keeping them till there are enough
to be worth printing, all practical ends may be enough
answered, and much more quickly.
The first function of a Museum — (for a little while I
shall speak of Art and Natural History as alike cared for
in an ideal one) — is to give example of perfect order and
perfect elegance, in the true sense of that test word, to
the disorderly and rude populace. Everything in its own
place, everything looking its best because it is there, nothing
crowded, nothing unnecessary, nothing puzzling. Therefore,
after a room has been once arranged, there must be no
change in it. For new possessions there must be new
rooms, and after twenty years' absence — coming back to
the room in which one learned one's bird or beast alphabet,
we should be able to show our children the old bird on
the old perch in the accustomed corner. But — first of all,
let the room be beautifully complete, i.e. complete enough
for its proper business.
2. In the British Museum,1 at the top of the stairs, we
1 [This refers to the old arrangement of the Museum, before the removal of
the Natural History collections to South Kensington. Ruskin was mistaken in
supposing (§ 3) that the re-arrangement would " take place in concurrence with
Kensington" (i.e., the Science and Art Department). The Natural History Museum
is under the exclusive control of the Trustees of the British Museum.]
247
248
encounter in a terrific alliance a giraffe, a hippopotamus,
and a basking shark.1 The public — young and old — pass with
a start and a stare, and remain as wise as they were before
about all the three creatures. The day before yesterday I
was standing by the big fish — a father came up to it with
his little boy. " That's a shark," says he ; " it turns on its
side when it wants to eat you," and so went on — literally
as wise as he was before ; for he had read in a book that
sharks turn on their side to bite, and he never looked at
the ticket, which told him this particular shark only ate
small fish. Now he never looked at the ticket, because he
didn't expect to find anything on it except that this was
the Sharkogobalus Smith-Jonesianius. But if, round the
walls of the room, there had been all the well-known kinds
of shark, going down, in graduated sizes, from that basking
one to our waggling dog-fish, and if every one of these
had had a plain English ticket, with ten words of common
sense on it, saying where and how the beast lived, and
a number (unchangeable) referring to a properly arranged
manual of the shark tribe (sold by the Museum publisher,
who ought to have his little shop close by the porter's
lodge), both father and son must have been much below
the level of average English man and boy in mother wit
if they did not go out of the room by the door in front
of them very distinctly, and — to themselves — amazingly,
wiser than they had come in by the door behind them.
3. If I venture to give instances of fault from the
British Museum, it is because, on the whole, it is the best-
ordered and pleasantest institution in all England, and the
grandest concentration of the means of human knowledge
in the world. And I am heartily sorry for the break-up
of it, and augur no good from any changes of arrange-
ment likely to take place in concurrence with Kensington,
where, the same day that I had been meditating by the
1 \Sdachus maximus : "The basking shark has derived its name from its pro-
pensity to lie on the surface of the water, as if to bask itself in the sun " (Bingley's
Animal Biography, 1813, vol. iii. p. 97).]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 249
old shark, I lost myself in a Cretan labyrinth of military
ironmongery, advertisements of spring blinds, model fish-
farming, and plaster bathing nymphs with a year's smut on
all the noses of them ; and had to put myself in charge of
a policeman to get out again.1 — Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
March ZQth, 1880.
4. MY DEAR , The only chance of my getting these
letters themselves into fairly consistent and Museum-like
order is by writing a word or two always the first thing
in the morning till I get them done ; so, I shall at least
remember what I was talking of the day before ; but for
the rest — I must speak of one thing or another as it may
come into my head, for there are too many to classify
without pedantry and loss of time.
My requirement of " elegance " in that last letter con-
templates chiefly architecture and fittings. These should
not only be perfect in stateliness, durability, and com-
fort, but beautiful to the utmost point consistent with due
subordination to the objects displayed. To enter a room
in the Louvre is an education in itself; but two steps on
the filthy floor and under the iron forks, half scaffold, half
gallows, of the big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind and
eye at once below possibility of looking at anything with
profit all the day afterwards. I have just heard that a
French picture dealer is to have charge of the picture
gallery there, and that the whole interior is to become
virtually a large cafe, when — it is hoped — the glass monster
may at last " pay." Concerning which beautiful consumma-
tion of Mr. Dickens's " Fairyland " (see my pamphlet 2 on
the opening of the so-called " palace "), be it here at once
1 [Compare "Modern Art," § 32 (Vol. XIX. p. 223); Vol. XXIX. p. 5(50; and
Art of England, § 60 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 307).]
a [The Opening of the Crystal Palace considered in some of its Relations to the
Prospects of Art (1854) : Vol. XII. pp. 417 xeq. The reference to Dickens occurs,
however, not there, but in Ethics of the Dust, § 32 (Vol. XVIII. p. 243).]
250 ON THE OLD ROAD
noted, that all idea of any "payment," in that sense, must
be utterly and scornfully abjured on the foundation stone
of every National or Civic Museum. There must be neither
companies to fill their own pockets out of it, nor trustees
who can cramp the management, or interfere with the
officering, or shorten the supplies of it. Put one man of
reputation and sense at its head; give him what staff he
asks for, and a fixed annual sum for expenditure — specific
accounts to be printed annually for all the world's seeing —
and let him alone. The original expenditure for building
and fitting must be magnificent, and the current expendi-
ture for cleaning and refitting magnanimous ; but a certain
proportion of this current cost should be covered by small
entrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly helping out of
the floor-sweepers' salaries, but for the sake of the visitors
themselves, that the rooms may not be encumbered by the
idle, or disgraced by the disreputable. You must not make
your Museum a refuge against either rain or ennui, nor let
into perfectly well-furnished, and even, in the true sense,
palatial, rooms, the utterly squalid and ill-bred portion of
the people. There should, indeed, be refuges for the poor
from rain and cold, and decent rooms accessible to indecent
persons, if they like to go there ; but neither of these
charities should be part of the function of a Civic Museum.
5. Make the entrance fee a silver penny (a silver groat,
typically representing the father, mother, eldest son, and
eldest daughter, passing always the total number of any
one family), and every person admitted, however young,
being requested to sign their name, or make their mark.1
That the entrance money should be always of silver is
one of the beginnings of education in the place — one of
the conditions of its " elegance " on the very threshold.
And the institution of silver for bronze in the lower
coinage 2 is a part of the system of National education
1 [Inability to write being no disqualification in Ruskin's eyes, but rather the
reverse: see the anecdote in Vol. XXVIII. p. 645 n.j
2 [See Fors Clavigera, Letter 58 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 430).]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 251
which I have been teaching these last ten years — a very
much deeper and wider one than any that can be given in
museums — and without which all museums will ultimately
be vain. — Ever affectionately yours, J. R.
P.S. — There should be a well-served coffee-room attached
to the building; but this part of the establishment without
any luxury in furniture or decoration, and without any
cooking apparatus for carnivora.
Easter Monday, 1880.
6. DEAR , The day is auspicious for the beginning
of reflection on the right manner of manifestation of all
divine things to those who desire to see them. For every
house of the Muses, where, indeed, they live, is an Inter-
preter's by the wayside,1 or rather, a place of oracle and
interpretation in one. And the right function of every
museum, to simple persons, is the manifestation to them
of what is lovely in the life of Nature, and heroic in the
life of Men.
There are already, you see, some quaint restrictions in
that last sentence, whereat sundry of our friends will start,
and others stop. I must stop also, myself, therefore, for a
minute or two, to insist on them.
7. A Museum, primarily, is to be for simple persons.
Children, that is to say, and peasants. For your student,
your antiquary, or your scientific gentleman, there must be
separate accommodation, or they must be sent elsewhere.
The Town Museum is to be for the Town's People, the
Village Museum for the Villagers. Keep that first principle
clear to start with. If you want to found an academy of
painting in Littleborough, or of literature in Squattle-
sea Mere, you must get your advice from somebody else,
not me.
8. Secondly. The museum is to manifest to these simple
1 ["Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and to address himself to his
journey, so the other told him, That by that he was gone some distance from the
gate, he would come at the house of the Interpreter" (Pilgrim's Progress).]
252 ON THE OLD ROAD
persons the beauty and life of all things and creatures in
their perfectness. Not their modes of corruption, disease,
or death. Not even, always, their genesis, in the more or
less blundering beginnings of it; not even their modes of
nourishment, if destructive ; you must not stuff a blackbird
pulling up a worm, nor exhibit in a glass case a crocodile
crunching a baby.
Neither must you ever show bones or guts, or any
other charnel-house stuff. Teach your children to know
the lark's note from the nightingale's ; the length of their
larynxes is their own business, and God's.
I cannot enough insist upon this point, nor too solemnly.
If you wish your children to be surgeons, send them to
Surgeons' College ; if jugglers or necromancers, to Messrs.
Maskelyne and Cooke ; * and if butchers, to the shambles :
but if you want them to lead the calm life of country
gentlemen and gentlewomen, manservants and maidservants,
let them seek none of Death's secrets till they die. — Ever
faithfully and affectionately yours, J. R.
Easter Tuesday, 1880.
9. DEAR , I must enter to-day somewhat further
on the practical, no less than emotional, reason for the
refusal of anatomical illustrations to the general public.
It is difficult enough to get one clear idea into anybody,
of any single thing. But next to impossible to get two
clear ideas into them, of the same thing. We have had
lions' heads for door-knockers these hundred and fifty years,
without ever learning so much as what a lion's head is like.2
But with good modern stuffing and sketching, I can manage
now to make a child really understand something about the
beast's look, and his mane, and his sullen eyes and brindled
lips. But if I'm bothered at the same time with a big
1 [Ruskin at one time frequently visited this coujuriug entertainment at the
Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly; for another reference to it, see below, p. 280.]
* [Compare the plate in Lectures on Architecture and Painting of the conventional
lion's head and Millais's study from life : Vol. XII. p. 66.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 253
bony box, that has neither mane, lips, nor eyes, and have
to explain to the poor wretch of a parish schoolboy how
somehow this fits on to that, I will be bound that, at a
year's end, draw one as big as the other, and he won't
know a lion's head from a tiger's — nor a lion's skull from
a rabbit's. Nor is it the parish boy only who suffers. The
scientific people themselves miss half their points from the
habit of hacking at things, instead of looking at them.
When I gave my lecture on the Swallow1 at Oxford, I
challenged every anatomist there to tell me the use of his
tail (I believe half of them didn't know he had one). Not
a soul of them could tell me, which I knew beforehand ;
but I did not know, till I had looked well through their
books, how they were quarrelling about his wings ! Actu-
ally at this moment (Easter Tuesday, 1880), I don't believe
you can find in any scientific book in Europe a true account
of the way a bird flies — or how a snake serpentines. My
Swallow lecture was the first bit of clear statement on the
one point, and when I get my Snake lecture published,2
you will have the first extant bit of clear statement on the
other ; and that is simply because the anatomists can't, for
their life, look at a thing till they have skinned it.
10. And matters get worse and worse every hour.
Yesterday, after writing the first leaf of this note, I went
into the British Museum, and found a nasty skeleton of a
lizard, with its under jaw dropped off, on the top of a table
of butterflies — temporarily of course — but then everything
has been temporary or temporising at the British Museum
for the last half-century ; making it always a mere waste
and weariness to the general public, because, forsooth, it
had always to be kept up to the last meeting of the
Zoological Society, and last edition of the Times. As if
there had not been beasts enough before the Ark to tell
our children the manners of, on a Sunday afternoon !
1 [In 1873 : see Love's Meinie, § 64, and Appendix II. (Vol. XXV. pp. 58, 177).]
* ["A Caution to Snakes," delivered at the London Institution on March 17,
1880, and afterwards published (July) as chapter i. ("Living Waves") in the second
volume of Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. pp. 295 set].]
254 ON THE OLD ROAD
11. I had gone into the Museum that day to see the
exact form of a duck's wing, the examination of a lively
young drake's here at Coniston having closed in his giving
me such a cut on the wrist with it, that I could scarcely
write all the morning afterwards. Now in the whole bird
gallery there are only two ducks' wings expanded, and
those in different positions. Fancy the difference to the
mob, and me, if the shells and monkey skeletons were
taken away from the mid-gallery, and instead, three gradated
series of birds put down the length of it (or half the length
— or a quarter would do it — with judgment), showing the
transition, in length of beak, from bunting to woodcock —
in length of leg, from swift to stilted plover — and in length
of wing, from auk to frigate-bird ; the wings, all opened,
in one specimen of each bird to their full sweep, and in
another, shown at the limit of the down back stroke. For
what on earth — or in air — is the use to me of seeing their
boiled sternums and scalped sinciputs, when I'm never
shown either how they bear their breasts — or where they
carry their heads ?
Enough of natural history, you will say ! I will come
to art in my next letter — finishing the ugly subject of this
one with a single sentence from section ix. of the Tale
of a Tub, commending the context of it to my friends of
the Royal Academy :—
"Last week, I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how
much it altered her person for the worse." J
Ever, my dear , affectionately yours, J. R.
1 [The passage continues : " Yesterday I ordered the carcase of a Beau to be
stripped in my presence ; when we were all amazed to find so many unsuspected
faults under one Suit of Cloaths. Then I laid open his Brain, his Heart, and his
Spleen : but I plainly perceived that the farther we proceeded, we found the Defects
increase upon us in number and bulk : from all which, I justly formed this con-
clusion to myself; that whatever philosopher or projector can find out an Art to
sodder and patch up the flaws and imperfections of nature, will deserve much
better of mankind and teach us a much more useful Science, than that so much in
present esteem, of widening and exposing them (like him who held Anatomy to
be the ultimate end of Physic)." Compare Vol. IV. p. 337 «.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 255
7th April, 1880.
12. MY DEAR , I suppose that proper respect for
the great first principles of the British Constitution, that
every man should do as he pleases, think what he likes, and
see everything that can be seen for money, will make most
of your readers recoil from my first principle of Museum
arrangement, — that nothing should be let inside the doors
that isn't good of its sort, — as from an attempt to restore
the Papacy, revive the Inquisition, and away with every-
body to the lowest dungeon of the castle moat. They
must at their pleasure charge me with these sinister views ;
they will find that there is no dexter view to be had of
the business, which does not consist primarily in knowing
Bad from Good, and Right from Wrong. Nor, if they will
condescend to begin simply enough, and at the bottom of
the said business, and let the cobbler judge of the crepida,1
and the potter of the pot, will they find it so supremely
difficult to establish authorities that shall be trustworthy,
and judgments that shall be sure.
13. Suppose, for instance, at Leicester, whence came
first to us the inquiry on such points, one began by setting
apart a Hunter's Room, in which a series of portraits of
their Master's favourites, for the last fifty years or so,
should be arranged, with certificate from each Squire of
his satisfaction, to such and such a point, with the portrait
of Lightfoot, or Lucifer, or Will o' the Wisp ; and due
notification, for perhaps a recreant and degenerate future,
of the virtues and perfections at this time sought and
secured in the English horse. Would not such a chamber
of chivalry have, in its kind, a quite indisputable autho-
rity and historical value, not to be shaken by any future
impudence or infidelity ?
1 [" Ne sutor supra crepidam " (Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxv. 10, 36) : let the cobbler
stick to his last. Pliny tells the story that a cobbler detected a fault in a shoe-
latchet iu one of the paintings of Apelles, who rectified the fault, but bade him
keep to his trade when he proceeded to criticise the figure : hence in § 24 (below,
p. 261) "the duly restricted sutor." See also below, p. 474 ; and Vol. XXIX. p. 498.]
256 ON THE OLD ROAD
Or again in Staffordshire, would it not be easily answered
to an honest question of what is good and not, in clay or
ware, " This will work, and that will stand " ? and might
not a series of the mugs which have been matured with
discrimination, and of the pots which have been popular
in use, be so ordered as to display their qualities in a
convincing and harmonious manner against all gainsayers ?
14. Nor is there any mystery of taste, or marvel of
skill, concerning which you may not get quite easy initia-
tion and safe pilotage for the common people, provided you
once make them clearly understand that there is indeed
something to be learned, and something to be admired, in
the arts, which will need their attention for a time ; and
cannot be explained with a word, nor seen with a wink.
And provided also, and with still greater decision, you set
over them masters, in each branch of the arts, who know
their own minds in that matter, and are not afraid to
speak them, nor to say, " We know," when they know,
and " We don't know," when they don't.
To which end, the said several branches must be held
well apart, and dealt with one at a time. Every consider-
able town ought to have its exemplary collections of wood-
work, ironwork, and jewellery, attached to the schools of
their several trades, leaving to be illustrated in its public
museum, as in an hexagonal bee's cell, the six queenly and
muse-taught arts of needlework, writing, pottery, sculpture,
architecture, and painting.
15. For each of these, there should be a separate
Tribune or Chamber of absolute tribunal, which need not
be large — that, so called, of Florence,1 not the size of
a railway waiting-room, has actually for the last century
determined the taste of the European public in two arts !
—in which the absolute best in each art, so far as attain-
able by the communal pocket, should be authoritatively
exhibited, with simple statement that it is good, and
1 [See above, p. 171.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 257
reason why it is good, and notification in what particulars
it is unsurpassable, together with some not too complex
illustrations of the steps by which it has attained to that
perfection, where these can be traced far back in history.
16. These six Tribunes, or Temples, of Fame, being
first set with their fixed criteria, there should follow a series
of historical galleries, showing the rise and fall (if fallen)
of the arts in their beautiful associations, as practised in
the great cities and by the great nations of the world.
The history of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Italy, of
France, and of England, should be given in their arts, —
dynasty by dynasty and age by age ; and for a seventh, a
Sunday Room, for the history of Christianity in its art,
including the farthest range and feeblest efforts of it ; re-
serving for this room, also, what power could be reached
in delineation of the great monasteries and cathedrals which
were once the glory of all Christian lands.
17. In such a scheme, every form of noble art would
take harmonious and instructive place, and often very little
and disregarded things be found to possess unthought-of
interest and hidden relative beauty ; but its efficiency — and
in this chiefly let it be commended to the patience of your
practical readers — would depend, not on its extent, but on
its strict and precise limitation. The methods of which, if
you care to have my notions of them, I might perhaps
enter into, next month,1 with some illustrative detail. — Ever
most truly yours, J. R.
Wtk June, 1880.
18. MY DEAR , I can't give you any talk on detail,
yet ; but, not to drop a stitch in my story, I want to say
why I've attached so much importance to needlework, and
put it in the opening court of the six. You see they are
progressive, so that 1 don't quite put needlework on a level
with painting. But a nation that would learn to "touch"
1 [The next letters appeared, however, two months later: see above, p. 246.]
258 ON THE OLD ROAD
must primarily know how to " stitch." I am always busy,
for a good part of the day, in my wood,1 and wear out my
leathern gloves fast, after once I can wear them at all : but
that's the precise difficulty of the matter. I get them from
the shop looking as stout and trim as you please, and half
an hour after I've got to work they split up the fingers
and thumbs like ripe horse-chestnut shells, and I find myself
with five dangling rags round my wrist, and a rotten white
thread draggling after me through the wood, or tickling
my nose, as if Ariadne and Arachne had lost their wits
together. I go home, invoking the universe against sewing-
machines ; 2 and beg the charity of a sound stitch or two
from any of the maids who know their woman's art ; and
thenceforward the life of the glove proper begins. Now, it
is not possible for any people that put up with this sort
of thing, to learn to paint, or do anything else with their
fingers decently : — only, for the most part they don't think
their museums are meant to show them how to do anything
decently, but rather how to be idle, indecently. Which ex-
tremely popular and extremely erroneous persuasion, if you
please, we must get out of our way before going further.
19. I owe some apology, by the way, to Mr. Frith, for
the way I spoke of his picture 3 in my letter to the Leicester
committee, not intended for publication, though I never
write what I would not allow to be published,4 and was
glad that they asked leave to print it. It was not I who
instanced the picture, it had been named in the meeting
of the committee as the kind of thing that people best
like, and I was obliged to say why people best liked it : —
namely, not for the painting, which is good, and worthy
their liking,5 but for the sight of the racecourse and its
humours. And the reason that such a picture ought not to
1 [See Vol. XXV. p. xxviii.]
1 [Compare Vol. XXVIII. p. 453.]
3 The "Derby Day." See Arrows of the Chace ; below, p. 542.]
4 [Compare tbe words in Fors Clavigera used as the motto to Arrows of the
Chace; below, p. 458.]
8 [Compare the notice of the picture in Academy Notes: Vol. XIV. p. 161.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 259
be in a museum, is precisely because in a museum people
ought not to fancy themselves on a racecourse. If they
want to see races, let them go to races ; and if rogues,
to Bridewells. They come to museums to see something
different from rogues and races.
20. But, to put the matter at once more broadly, and
more accurately, be it remembered, for sum of all, that a
museum is not a theatre. Both are means of noble educa-
tion— but you must not mix up the two. Dramatic interest
is one thing ; aesthetic charm another ; a pantomime must
not depend on its fine colour, nor a picture on its fine
pantomime.
Take a special instance. It is long since I have been
so pleased in the Royal Academy as I was by Mr. Briton
Riviere's " Sympathy." l The dog in uncaricatured dogged-
ness, divine as Anubis, or the Dog-star; the child entirely
childish and lovely, the carpet might have been laid by
Veronese. A most precious picture in itself, yet not one
for a museum. Everybody would think only of the story
in it ; everybody be wondering what the little girl had
done, and how she would be forgiven, and if she wasn't,
how soon she would stop crying, and give the doggie a
kiss, and comfort his heart. All which they might study
at home among their own children and dogs just as well ;
and should not come to the museum to plague the real
students there, since there is not anything of especial
notableness or unrivalled quality in the actual painting.
21. On the other hand, one of the four pictures I chose
for permanent teaching in Fors was one of a child and a
dog.2 The child is doing nothing ; neither is the dog. But
the dog is absolutely and beyond comparison the best
painted dog in the world — ancient or modern — on this side
of it, or at the Antipodes, (so far as I've seen the contents
1 [At the Academy, 1878: for another reference to the picture, see Art of
England, § 63 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 310).]
2 [For this picture — " The Infanta Margarita Teresa " — by Velasquez, see
Plate VIII. in Vol. XXVIH. (p. 627).]
XXXIV. E
260 ON THE OLD ROAD
of said world). And the child is painted so that child
cannot be better done.1 That is a picture for a museum.
Not that dramatic, still less didactic, intention should
disqualify a work of art for museum purposes. But—
broadly — dramatic and didactic art should be universally
national, the lustre of our streets, the treasure of our
palaces, the pleasure of our homes. Much art that is weak,
transitory, and rude may thus become helpful to us. But
the museum is only for what is eternally right, and well
done, according to divine law and human skill. The least
things are to be there — and the greatest — but all good with
the goodness that makes a child cheerful and an old man
calm ; the simple should go there to learn, and the wise to
remember.
22. And now to return to what I meant to be the
subject of this letter — the arrangement of our first ideal
room in such a museum. As I think of it, I would fain
expand the single room, first asked for, into one like Prince
Houssain's, — no, Prince Houssain had the flying tapestry,
and I forget which prince had the elastic palace.2 But,
indeed, it must be a lordly chamber which shall be large
enough to exhibit the true nature of thread and needle-
omened in " Thread-needle Street " ! 3
The structure,4 first of wool and cotton, of fur, and hair,
and down, of hemp, flax, and silk : — microscope permissible
if any cause can be shown why wool is soft, and fur fine,
and cotton downy, and down downier; and how a flax fibre
1 [Durer's famous saying : see Vol. XXII. p. 371.]
2 [See Vol. XXVIII. p. 736.]
3 [For the importance attached by Ruskin to the art of needlework as " neces-
sary for the prosperity of a nation," see " The Story of Arachne," Vol. XX.
p. 377 ; and compare above, p. 256. He suggests that this importance is shown
by a chief street in the City of London — the street, moreover, in which the Bank
of England is now situated — having been given the name Thread-needle. The
name is supposed to be a corruption of Thrig-needle (three-needle) street, from the
three needles borne in the arms of the Needlemakers' Company. Other etymolo-
gists, however, make it a corruption of Thryddenal Street (Anglo-Saxon thrydda,
third), meaning the third street from Cheapside.]
* [The following sentences (§§ 22-24) are repeated with revision and rearrange-
ment from Fors Clavigera, Letter 95 (Vol. XXIX. pp. 509-511), where the necessary
notes will be found.]
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY 261
differs from a dandelion stalk, and how the substance of a
mulberry leaf can become velvet for Queen Victoria's crown,
and clothing of purple for the housewife of Solomon.
Then the phase of its dyeing. What azures, and
emeralds, and Tyrian scarlets can be got into fibres of
thread.
23. Then the phase of its spinning. The mystery of
that divine spiral, from finest to firmest, which renders lace
possible at Valenciennes — anchorage possible, after Trafalgar
— if Hardy had but done as he was bid.
Then the mystery of weaving. The eternal harmony of
warp and woof, of all manner of knotting, knitting, and
reticulation, the art which makes garment possible, woven
from the top throughout, draughts of fishes possible, miracu-
lous enough in any pilchard or herring shoal, gathered into
companionable catchableness ; — which makes, in fine, so many
Nations possible, and Saxon and Norman beyond the rest.
24. And finally, the accomplished phase of needlework,
the Acu Tetigisti of all time, which does, indeed, practically
exhibit what mediaeval theologists vainly tried to conclude
inductively — How many angels can stand on a needle-point.1
To show the essential nature of a stitch — drawing the sepa-
rate into the inseparable, from the lowly work of duly
restricted sutor, and modestly installed cobbler, to the
needle- Scripture of Matilda,2 the Queen.
All the acicular Art of Nations, savage and civilized,
from Lapland boot, letting in no snow-water — to Turkey
cushion bossed with pearl — to valance of Venice gold in
needlework — to the counterpanes and samplers of our own
lovely ancestresses,3 imitable, perhaps, once more, with good
help from Whitelands College — and Girton.
1 [See Duns Sootus in the Second Book of Sentences. Speculations on the sub-
ject may be read in vol. ii. pp. 175 seq. of Commentarii Theologici quibus lo. Duns
Scoti qucestioncs in Libros Sententiarum elucidantur et illustruntur Authore Joanne
Ponrio, Paris, 1061.]
* [For other references to the Bayeux Tapestry, see Vol. X. p. 76. and
Vol. XX. pp. 269, 875.]
3 [To an exhibition of samplers at the Fine Art Society in 1900, Mrs. Severn
sent a "Sampler worked by John Ruskin's grandmother, Catherine Tweddale,
A.I). 1775" (No. 13'! in the catalogue).]
262 ON THE OLD ROAD
25. It was but yesterday, my own womankind were in
much wholesome and sweet excitement delightful to behold,
in the practice of some new device of remedy for rents (to
think how much of evil there is in the two senses of that
four-lettered word ! as in the two methods of intonation of
its synonym tear !) whereby they might be daintily effaced,
and with a newness which would never make them worse.
The process began beautifully, even to my uninformed eyes,
in the likeness of herring-bone masonry, crimson on white,
but it seemed to me marvellous that anything should yet
be discoverable in needle process, and that of so utilitarian
character.
All that is reasonable, I say, of such work is to be in
our first museum room. All that Athena and Penelope
would approve. Nothing that vanity has invented for
change, or folly loved for costliness ; but all that can bring
honest pride into homely life, and give security to health
— and honour to beauty.
J. RUSKIN.
9
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL
(1880, 1881)
[Bibliographical Note. — These Five Papers appeared in the Nineteenth Century,
thus : —
I. No. 40, June 1880, vol. vii. pp. 941-963.
II. No. 42, August 1880, vol. viii. pp. 195-206.
III. No. 43, September 1880, vol. viii. pp. 394-410.
IV. No. 45, November 1880, vol. viii. pp. 748-760.
V. No. 56, October 1881, vol. x. pp. 516-531.
The Papers were reprinted in On the Old Road, §§ 1-123, vol. ii.
pp. 3-166, in ed. 1 (1885) ; vol. iii. pp. 3-169, in ed. 2 (1899).
Reviews appeared of the first two papers in the Spectator, August 7,
1880 (" Mr. Ruskin on Wordsworth "), of the first three in the St. James's
Magazine, October 1880, vol. 39, pp. 307-315, and of the fifth in the
Academy, October 15, 1881.
For some misprints in I. and III. as originally printed in the Nineteenth
Century, see the author's notes at the end of II. and IV. (below, pp. 321,
368 ».). The misprints were corrected in On the Old Road.
To these, it may be added that in § 14, note t, line 49, " quite " was
misprinted " quiet" in On the Old Road; in § 27, lines 11 and 12, Red-
gauntlet was missed out altogether in the Nineteenth Century (the MS.
having omitted it in fair-copying); and in § 54, note, line 9, "1820"
was misprinted ' ' 1828 " in the Nineteenth Century and in ed. 1 of On the
Old Road.
In the present edition, a few other corrections have now been made : —
§ 14 n., "Necbatanus" for " Nectabanus."
§ 21, note t, the reference to Lockhart has hitherto been misprinted
"106."
§ 27, note t, quotation marks have been introduced.
§ 33, "Freebairn" for " Fairbairn."
§ 33 n., "Macgeorge" for "George"; and "120, 140" for "129, 149."
§ 42, note t, the Italian line is corrected.
§ 53, line 7, "Isar" is here an alteration for "Iser"; for, though
the Bavarian river is also sometimes spelt "Iser," that spelling is usually
reserved for the Bohemian river.
§ 76, line 7, "Trumbull" has hitherto been misprinted "Turnbull."
§ 76, some of the page references to Lockhart have here been corrected ;
one reference has been added ; and quotation marks have in two cases
been inserted.
§ 87, line 23, "1167" is a correction for "1166."
§ 87, note, "9" for "8."
§ 88, note, the reference to Sismondi is changed from "vol. i. p. 378"
to "vol. ii. p. 127."
§ 98, note *, see p. 367 n.
§ 106, line 6, "Leoni" for "Le'onie."
§ 115, line 14, "fright" is a correction for "right."
§ 120, in the quotation from Scott, "pliskies" for "diskies" and "sops"
for "taps"; and some words omitted by Ruskin are inserted.
§§ 116, 121, 122, "Lancie" for "Laurie."]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL
[SCOTT]
1. ON the first mild — or, at least, the first bright — day
of March,1 in this year, I walked through what was once
a country lane, between the hostelry of the Half-moon at
the bottom of Herne Hill, and the secluded College of
Dulwich.
In my young days, Croxted Lane was a green bye-
road traversable for some distance by carts ; but rarely so
traversed, and, for the most part, little else than a narrow
strip of untilled field, separated by blackberry hedges from
the better-cared-for meadows on each side of it : growing
more weeds, therefore, than they, and perhaps in spring a
primrose or two — white archangel— daisies plenty, and purple
thistles in autumn. A slender rivulet, boasting little of its
brightness, for there are no springs at Dulwich, yet fed
purely enough by the rain and morning dew, here trickled
— there loitered — through the long grass beneath the hedges,
and expanded itself, where it might, into moderately clear
and deep pools, in which, under their veils of duck-weed,
a fresh-water shell or two, sundry curious little skipping
shrimps, any quantity of tadpoles in their time, and even
sometimes a tittlebat, offered themselves to my boyhood's
* Nineteenth Century, June 1880.
1 [Wordsworth's "To ray Sister" : compare Vol. XVII. p. 376, and Vol. XXIII.
p. xxi.]
265
266 ON THE OLD ROAD
pleased, and not inaccurate, observation.1 There, my mother
and I used to gather the first buds of the hawthorn ;
and there, in after years, I used to walk in the summer
shadows, as in a place wilder and sweeter than our garden,
to think over any passage I wanted to make better than
usual in Modern Painters.
So, as aforesaid, on the first kindly day of this year,
being thoughtful more than usual of those old times, I
went to look again at the place.
2. Often, both in those days, and since, I have put
myself hard to it, vainly, to find words wherewith to tell
of beautiful things ; but beauty has been in the world
since the world was made, and human language can make
a shift, somehow, to give account of it, whereas the
peculiar forces of devastation induced by modern city life
have only entered the world lately ; and no existing terms
of language known to me are enough to describe the forms
of filth, and modes of ruin, that varied themselves along
the course of Croxted Lane. The fields on each side of
it are now mostly dug up for building, or cut through
into gaunt corners and nooks of blind ground by the wild
crossings and concurrencies of three railroads. Half a
dozen handfuls of new cottages, with Doric doors, are
dropped about here and there among the gashed ground :
the lane itself, now entirely grassless, is a deep-rutted,
heavy-hillocked cart-road, diverging gatelessly into various
brickfields or pieces of waste ; and bordered on each side
by heaps of — Hades only knows what ! — mixed dust of
every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, and
mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in
damp : ashes and rags, beer- bottles and old shoes, battered
pans, smashed crockery, shreds of nameless clothes, door-
sweepings, floor- sweepings, kitchen garbage, back-garden
sewage, old iron, rotten timber jagged with out -torn nails,
cigar-ends, pipe-bowls, cinders, bones, and ordure, indescrib-
able ; and, variously kneaded into, sticking to, or fluttering
1 [Compare Prceterita, i. § 100.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 267
foully here and there over all these, remnants, broadcast,
of every manner of newspaper, advertisement or big-lettered
bill, festering and flaunting out their last publicity in the
pits of stinking dust and mortal slime.
3. The lane ends now where its prettiest windings once
began ; being cut off by a cross-road leading out of Dul-
wich to a minor railway station : and on the other side of
this road, what was of old the daintiest intricacy of its
solitude is changed into a straight, and evenly macadamised
carriage drive between new houses of extreme respecta-
bility, with good attached gardens and offices — most of
these tenements being larger — all more pretentious, and
many, I imagine, held at greatly higher rent than my
father's, tenanted for twenty years at Herne Hill. And it
became matter of curious meditation to me what must
here become of children resembling my poor little dreamy
quondam self in temper, and thus brought up at the same
distance from London, and in the same or better circum-
stances of worldly fortune ; but with only Croxted Lane
in its present condition for their country walk. The trimly
kept road before their doors, such as one used to see in
the fashionable suburbs of Cheltenham or Leamington, pre-
sents nothing to their study but gravel, and gas-lamp posts ;
the modern addition of a vermilion letter-pillar contribut-
ing indeed to the splendour, but scarcely to the interest of
the scene ; and a child of any sense or fancy would hastily
contrive escape from such a barren desert of politeness, and
betake itself to investigation, such as might be feasible, of
the natural history of Croxted Lane.
4. But, for its sense or fancy, what food, or stimulus,
can it find, in that foul causeway of its youthful pilgrim-
age ? What would have happened to myself, so directed,
I cannot clearly imagine. Possibly, I might have got in-
terested in the old iron and wood-shavings ; and become
an engineer or a carpenter : but for the children of to-day,
accustomed, from the instant they are out of their cradles,
to the sight of this infinite nastiness, prevailing as a fixed
268 ON THE OLD ROAD
condition of the universe, over the face of nature, and
accompanying all the operations of industrious man, what
is to be the scholastic issue ? unless, indeed, the thrill of
scientific vanity in the primary analysis of some unheard-of
process of corruption — or the reward of microscopic research
in the sight of worms with more legs, and acari of more
curious generation than ever vivified the more simply smell-
ing plasma of antiquity.
One result of such elementary education is, however,
already certain ; namely, that the pleasure which we may
conceive taken by the children of the coming time, in the
analysis of physical corruption, guides, into fields more
dangerous and desolate, the expatiation of an imaginative
literature : and that the reactions of moral disease upon
itself, and the conditions of languidly monstrous character
developed in an atmosphere of low vitality, have become
the most valued material of modern fiction, and the most
eagerly discussed texts of modern philosophy.
5. The many concurrent reasons for this mischief may,
I believe, be massed under a few general heads.
(I.) There is first the hot fermentation and unwhole-
some secrecy of the population crowded into large cities,1
each mote in the misery lighter, as an individual soul, than
a dead leaf, but becoming oppressive and infectious each to
his neighbour, in the smoking mass of decay. The result-
ing modes of mental ruin and distress are continually new;
and in a certain sense, worth study in their monstrosity :
they have accordingly developed a corresponding science of
fiction, concerned mainly with the description of such forms
of disease, like the botany of leaf- lichens.
In De Balzac's story of Father Goriot,2 a grocer makes
a large fortune, of which he spends on himself as much as
may keep him alive ; and on his two daughters, all that
1 [On the secrecy of life in large cities, compare Time and Tide, § 72 (Vol. XVII.
pp. 378, 379). Compare also the note on Queen of the Air, § 121 (Vol. XIX.
p. 401).]
2 [For another reference to Le Pere Goriot, see Appendix 21 in Vol. XXIX.
(p. 588).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 269
can promote their pleasures or their pride. He marries
them to men of rank, supplies their secret expenses, and
provides for his favourite a separate and clandestine estab-
lishment with her lover. On his deathbed, he sends for
this favourite daughter, who wishes to come, and hesitates
for a quarter of an hour between doing so, and going to
a ball at which it has been for the last month her chief
ambition to be seen. She finally goes to the ball.
The story is, of course, one of which the violent con-
trasts and spectral catastrophe could only take place, or be
conceived, in a large city. A village grocer cannot make
a large fortune, cannot marry his daughters to titled squires,
and cannot die without having his children brought to him,
if in the neighbourhood, by fear of village gossip, if for no
better cause.
6. (II.) But a much more profound feeling than this
mere curiosity of science in morbid phenomena is concerned
in the production of the carefullest forms of modern fiction.
The disgrace and grief resulting from the mere trampling
pressure and electric friction of town life, become to the
sufferers peculiarly mysterious in their undeservedness, and
frightful in their inevitableness. The power of all surround-
ings over them for evil ; the incapacity of their own minds
to refuse the pollution, and of their own wills to oppose
the weight, of the staggering mass that chokes and crushes
them into perdition, brings every law of healthy existence
into question with them, and every alleged method of help
and hope into doubt. Indignation, without any calming
faith in justice, and self-contempt, without any curative self-
reproach, dull the intelligence, and degrade the conscience,
into sullen incredulity of all sunshine outside the dung-
hill, or breeze beyond the wafting of its impurity ; and
at last a philosophy develops itself, partly satiric, partly
consolatory, concerned only with the regenerative vigour of
manure, and the necessary obscurities of fimetic l Providence ;
1 [For this word, see Vol. XXVII. p. 630.]
270 ON THE OLD ROAD
showing how everybody's fault is somebody else's, how
infection has no law, digestion no will, and profitable dirt
no dishonour.
And thus an elaborate and ingenious scholasticism, in
what may be called tHe Divinity of Decomposition, has
established itself in connection with the more recent forms
of romance, giving them at once a complacent tone of
clerical dignity, and an agreeable dash of heretical impu-
dence ; while the inculcated doctrine has the double advan-
tage of needing no laborious scholarship for its foundation,
and no painful self-denial for its practice.
7. (III.) The monotony of life in the central streets of
any great modern city, but especially in those of London,
where every emotion intended to be derived by men from
the sight of nature, or the sense of art, is forbidden for
ever, leaves the craving of the heart for a sincere, yet
changeful, interest, to be fed from one source only. Under
natural conditions the degree of mental excitement neces-
sary to bodily health is provided by the course of the
seasons, and the various skill and fortune of agriculture.
In the country every morning of the year brings with it a
new aspect of springing or fading nature; a new duty to
be fulfilled upon earth, and a new promise or warning in
heaven. No day is without its innocent hope, its special
prudence, its kindly gift, and its sublime danger; and in
every process of wise husbandry, and every effort of con-
tending or remedial courage, the wholesome passions, pride,
and bodily power of the labourer are excited and exerted
in happiest unison. The companionship of domestic, the
care of serviceable, animals, soften and enlarge his life with
lowly charities, and discipline him in familiar wisdoms and
unboastful fortitudes ; while the divine laws of seed-time
which cannot be recalled, harvest which cannot be hastened,
and winter in which no man can work, compel the im-
patiences and coveting of his heart into labour too sub-
missive to be anxious, and rest too sweet to be wanton.
What thought can enough comprehend the contrast between
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 271
such life, and that in streets where summer and winter are
only alternations of heat and cold ; where snow never fell
white, nor sunshine clear ; where the ground is only a pave-
ment, and the sky no more than the glass roof of an arcade ;
where the utmost power of a storm is to choke the gutters,
and the finest magic of spring, to change mud into dust :
where — chief and most fatal difference in state — there is no
interest of occupation for any of the inhabitants but the
routine of counter or desk within doors, and the effort to
pass each other without collision outside ; so that from
morning to evening the only possible variation of the
monotony of the hours, and lightening of the penalty of
existence, must be some kind of mischief, limited, unless
by more than ordinary godsend of fatality, to the fall of a
horse, or the slitting of a pocket ?
8. I said that under these laws of inanition, the craving
of the human heart for some kind of excitement could
be supplied from one source only. It might have been
thought by any other than a sternly tentative philosopher,
that the denial of their natural food to human feelings
would have provoked a reactionary desire for it ; and that
the dreariness of the street would have been gilded by
dreams of pastoral felicity. Experience has shown the fact
to be otherwise ; the thoroughly trained Londoner can
enjoy no other excitement than that to which he has been
accustomed, but asks for that in continually more ardent
or more virulent concentration ; and the ultimate power
of fiction to entertain him is by varying to his fancy the
modes, and defining for his dulness the horrors, of Death.
In the single novel of Bleak House there are nine deaths
(or left for death's, in the drop scene) carefully wrought
out or led up to, either by way of pleasing surprise, as the
baby's at the brickmaker's,1 or finished in their threaten-
ings and sufferings, with as much enjoyment as can be
contrived in the anticipation, and as much pathology as can
1 [See chapter viii.]
272 ON THE OLD ROAD
be concentrated in the description. Under the following
varieties of method : —
One by assassination ..... Mr. Tulkinghorn.
One by starvation, with phthisis . , Joe.
One by chagrin ..... Richard.
One by spontaneous combustion . . Mr. Krook.
One by sorrow ...... Lady Dedlock's lover.
One by remorse ..... Lady Dedlock.
One by insanity Miss Flite.
One by paralysis ..... Sir Leicester.
Besides the baby, by fever, and a lively young French-
woman left to be hanged.1
And all this, observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or
military story, but merely as the further enlivenment of a
narrative intended to be amusing ; and as a properly repre-
sentative average of the statistics of civilian mortality in
the centre of London.
9. Observe further, and chiefly. It is not the mere
number of deaths (which, if we count the odd troopers in
the last scene, is exceeded in Old Mortality, and reached,
within one or two, both in Waverley and Guy Mannering*}
that marks the peculiar tone of the modern novel. It is
the fact that all these deaths, but one, are of inoffensive,
or at least in the world's estimate, respectable persons ; and
that they are all grotesquely either violent or miserable,
purporting thus to illustrate the modern theology that the
appointed destiny of a large average of our population
is to die like rats in a drain, either by trap or poison.
Not, indeed, that a lawyer in full practice can be usually
supposed as faultless in the eye of Heaven as a dove or a
1 [For the arrest of Mademoiselle Hortense, murderess of Mr. Tulkinghorn, see
ch. liv.]
2 [In Waverley there are five deaths — viz., those of the Laird of Balmawhapple
and Colonel Gardner (ch. xlvii.), Richard Waverley (ch. Ixi.), Donald Bean Lean
(ch. Ixii.), and Fergus Maclvor (ch. Ixix.). In Guy Mannering there are seven or
eight deaths — viz., the murder of Kennedy, whose cruel function was that of
"riding officer" (ch. ix.) ; the death from shock of Mrs. Bertram (ibid.), and of
her husband (ch. xiii.) ; one or two smugglers, including Brown (ch. xxx.); Meg
Merrilies, the heroine, shot by Dirk Hatteraick (ch. liv.), Glossin, killed in his
struggle with him (ch. Ivii.), with finally the suicide of Hatteraick himself (ibid.).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 273
woodcock ; but it is not, in former divinities, thought the
will of Providence that he should be dropped by a shot
from a client behind his fire-screen, and retrieved in the
morning by his housemaid under the chandelier. Neither
is Lady Dedlock less reprehensible in her conduct than
many women of fashion have been and will be : but it
would not therefore have been thought poetically just, in
old-fashioned morality, that she should be found by her
daughter lying dead, with her face in the mud of a St.
Giles's churchyard.1
10. In the work of the great masters death is always
either heroic, deserved, or quiet and natural (unless their
purpose be totally and deeply tragic, when collateral meaner
death is permitted, like that of Polonius or Roderigo2).
In Old Mortality, four of the deaths, Bothwell's, Ensign
Grahame's, Macbriar's, and Evandale's, are magnificently
heroic ; Burley's and Olifant's long deserved, and swift ;
the troopers', met in the discharge of their military duty ;
and the old miser's, as gentle as the passing of a cloud,
and almost beautiful in its last words of — now unselfish —
care :—
" ' Ailie ' (he aye ca'd me Ailie, we were auld acquaintance), ' Ailie,
take ye care and baud the gear weel thegither ; for the name of Morton
of Milnwood's gane out like the last sough of an auld sang.' And sae
he fell out o' ae dwam into another, and ne'er spak a word mair, unless
it were something we cou'dna mak out, about a dipped candle being gude
eneugh to see to dee wf. He cou'd ne'er bide to see a moulded ane,
and there was ane, by ill luck, on the table." 3
In Guy Mannering, the murder, though unpremeditated,
of a single person, (himself not entirely innocent, but at
least by heartlessness in a cruel function earning his fate,)
is avenged to the uttermost on all the men conscious of
the crime ; Mr. Bertram's death, like that of his wife, brief
1 [Compare Vol. XXX. p. 155.]
1 \Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 4 ; Othello, Act v. sc. 2.]
3 [Ch. xxxix. of Old Mortality. For the other deaths, see ch. xvi. for Both-
well's and Grahame's ; ch. xxxvi. for those of Macbriar, Evandale, Burley, aud
Olifant. For numerous deaths both of troopers and insurgents, in battle and
otherwise, see chaps, xvi., xxv., xxxiii.-iv., and xliv. Ruskin omits to mention the
death of Habakkuk Mucklewrath, the mad preacher, in ch. xxxiv.]
274 ON THE OLD ROAD
in pain, and each told in the space of half-a-dozen lines ;
and that of the heroine of the tale, self-devoted, heroic in
the highest, and happy.
Nor is it ever to be forgotten, in the comparison of
Scott's with inferior work, that his own splendid powers
were, even in early life, tainted, and in his latter years
destroyed, by modern conditions of commercial excitement,
then first, but rapidly, developing themselves. There are
parts even in his best novels coloured to meet tastes which
he despised ; and many pages written in his later ones to
lengthen his article for the indiscriminate market.
11. But there was one weakness of which his healthy
mind remained incapable to the last. In modern stories pre-
pared for more refined or fastidious audiences than those of
Dickens, the funereal excitement is obtained, for the most
part, not by the infliction of violent or disgusting death ;
but in the suspense, the pathos, and the more or less by
all felt, and recognized, mortal phenomena of the sick-room.
The temptation, to weak writers, of this order of subject is
especially great, because the study of it from the living —
or dying — model is so easy, and to many has been the most
impressive part of their own personal experience ; while,
if the description be given even with mediocre accuracy,
a veiy large section of readers will admire its truth, and
cherish its melancholy. Few authors of second or third
rate genius can either record or invent a probable conversa-
tion in ordinary life ; but few, on the other hand, are so
destitute of observant faculty as to be unable to chronicle
the broken syllables and languid movements of an invalid.
The easily rendered, and too surely recognized, image of
familiar suffering is felt at once to be real where all else
had been false; and the historian of the gestures of fever
and words of delirium can count on the applause of a
gratified audience as surely as the dramatist who introduces
on the stage of his flagging action a carriage that can be
driven or a fountain that will flow. But the masters of
strong imagination disdain such work, and those of deep
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 275
sensibility shrink from it.* Only under conditions of per-
sonal weakness, presently to be noted, would Scott comply
with the cravings of his lower audience in scenes of terror
like the death of Front-de-Bceuf.1 But he never once with-
drew the sacred curtain of the sick-chamber, nor permitted
the disgrace of wanton tears round the humiliation of
strength, or the wreck of beauty.
12. (IV.) No exception to this law of reverence will be
found in the scenes in Cceur de Lion's illness introductory
to the principal incident in The Talisman.2 An inferior
writer would have made the king charge in imagination at
the head of his chivalry, or wander in dreams by the brooks
of Aquitaine ; but Scott allows us to learn no more startling
symptoms of the king's malady than that he was restless
and impatient, and could not wear his armour. Nor is any
bodily weakness, or crisis of danger, permitted to disturb
for an instant the royalty of intelligence and heart in which
he examines, trusts and obeys the physician whom his
attendants fear.
Yet the choice of the main subject in this story and
its companion — the trial, to a point of utter torture, of
knightly faith, and several passages in the conduct of both,
more especially the exaggerated scenes in the House of
Baldringham, and hermitage of Engedi,3 are signs of the
* Nell, in The Old Curiosity Shop, was simply killed for the market,
as a butcher kills a lamb (see Forster's Life4), and Paul was written
under the same conditions of illness which affected Scott — a part of the
ominous palsies, grasping alike author and subject both in Dombey and
Little Dorrit.5
1 [See Jvanhoe, ch. xxx.]
* Chaps, vi. #«</.]
3 See chaps, xiii. and xv. of The Betrothed, and The Talisman, passim.]
4 The Life of Charles Dickens, ch. xii. (vol. i. p. 188), where Forster explains
that the tragic ending was his suggestion, Dickens himself not having thought of
killing little Nell.]
6 [Dombey and Son was written during the latter part of 1846, the whole of
1847, and the early part of 1848. During most of this time Dickens was on the
Continent, subject, as lie said, to "extraordinary nervousness it would be hardly
possible to describe," and constantly haunted with the dread of " a race against
time" (Forster's lAfe, vol. iii. pp. 221, 259-260). lAttle Dorrit came out between
December 1855 to June 1857 ; for Dickens's restless and morbid condition at the
time, see ii/rf., pp. 156-157.]
xxxiv. s
276 ON THE OLD ROAD
gradual decline in force of intellect and soul which those
who love Scott best have done him the worst injustice in
their endeavours to disguise or deny. The mean anxieties,
moral humiliations, and mercilessly demanded brain-toil,1
which killed him, show their sepulchral grasp for many and
many a year before their final victory ; and the states of
more or less dulled, distorted, and polluted imagination
which culminate in Castle Dangerous cast a Stygian hue
over St. Ronan's Well, The Fair Maid of Perth, and Anne
of Greierstein? which lowers them, the first altogether, the
other two at frequent intervals, into fellowship with the
normal disease which festers throughout the whole body of
our lower fictitious literature.
13. Fictitious ! I use the ambiguous word deliberately ;
for it is impossible to distinguish in these tales of the
prison-house how far their vice and gloom are thrown into
their manufacture only to meet a vile demand, and how
far they are an integral condition of thought in the minds
of men trained from their youth up in the knowledge
of Londinian and Parisian misery. The speciality of the
plague is a delight in the exposition of the relations be-
tween guilt and decrepitude ; and I call the results of it
literature " of the prison-house," because the thwarted habits
of body and mind, which are the punishment of reckless
crowding in cities, become, in the issue of that punishment,
frightful subjects of exclusive interest to themselves ; and
the art of fiction in which they finally delight is only the
more studied arrangement and illustration, by coloured fire-
lights, of the daily bulletins of their own wretchedness,
in the prison calendar, the police news, and the hospital
report.
14. The reader will perhaps be surprised at my separating
1 [Compare below, § 27 (p. 292).]
2 [The dates of publication of these stories are (in the order of their mention
by Ruskin) 1831 (Scott died in 1832), 1823, 1828, and 1829. The Talisman and The
Betrothed were published in 1825. For another reference to the morbid taint in
Castle Dangerous, see Modern Painters, vol. iv. (Vol. VI. pp. 397-8), and Vol. XXV.
p. 297. For St. Ronan's Well, see below, S§ 23, 24, 27; and for The Fair Maid
*f Perth, § 14 n.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 277
the greatest work of Dickens, Oliver Twist, with honour,
from the loathsome m ass to which it typically belongs
That book is an earnest and uncaricatured record of states
of criminal life, written with didactic purpose, full of the
gravest instruction, nor destitute of pathetic studies of noble
passion.1 Even The Mysteries of Paris2 and Gaboriau's
Crime d'Ordval are raised, by their defmiteness of historical
intention and forewarning anxiety, far above the level of
their order, and may be accepted as photographic evidence
of an otherwise incredible civilization, corrupted in the in-
fernal fact of it, down to the genesis of such figures as the
Vicomte d'Orcival, the Stabber,* the Skeleton, and the She-
wolf. But the effectual head of the whole cretinous school
is the renowned novel in which the hunchbacked lover
watches the execution of his mistress from the tower of
Notre-Dame ; 3 and its strength passes gradually away into
the anatomical preparations, for the general market, of
novels like Poor Miss Finch* in which the heroine is blind,
* " Chourineur " not striking with dagger-point, but ripping with knife-
edge. Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing them with the
two others ; they are put together only as parts in the same phantasm.
Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the Louvecienne
(Lucienne) of Gaboriau — she, province-born and bred; and opposed to
Parisian civilization in the character of her sempstress friend. " De ce
Paris, ou elle etait nee, elle savait tout — elle connaissait tout. Rien ne
1'etonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa science des details materiels de 1'exist-
ence etait inconcevable. Impossible de la duper! — Eh bien ! cette fille
si laborieuse et si econome n'avait meme pas la plus vague notion des
sentiments qui sont 1'honneur de la femme. Je n'avais pas idee d'une si
complete absence de sens moral ; d'une si inconsciente depravation, d'une
impudence si effrontement nai've." — L' Argent des autres, vol. i. p. 358. 5
1 [For other references to Oliver Twist, sec Vol. I. p. 411, and Vol. XXVIII.
p. 614.]
* [For other references iu the same sense — to Eugene Sue, see Vol. VI. p. 398,
where Ruskin mentions the Squelette (Skeleton), and Vol. V. p. 372, the Stabber
(Ixj Chourineur) aud the She-wolf (La Louve) are other characters in the Myateres
de Paris)', to Gaboriau, Vol. XXVIII. p. 118.]
3 [Compare Vol. XXIX. p. 588 n. ; aud (in a later volume of this edition) a
letter to Dr. Furnivall of May 22, 1855, in which Ruskin dismisses Victor Hugo's
book as "the most disgusting" known to him. See also below, p. 724.]
4 [By Wilkie Collins, published in 1872.1
4 [Fc
[For part of this and a further quotation from the same passage, see Fors
Clavigera, Letter 43 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 115).]
278 ON THE OLD ROAD
the hero epileptic, and the obnoxious brother is found dead
with his hands dropped off, in the Arctic regions.*
15. This literature of the Prison-house, understanding
by the word not only the cell of Newgate, but also and
even more definitely the cell of the Hotel-Dieu, the Hopital
des Fous, and the grated corridor with the dripping slabs
* The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medical evidence of
the physical effects of certain states of brain disease in producing especially
images of truncated and Hermes-like deformity, complicated with grossness.
Horace, in the Epodes, scoffs at it, but not without horror.1 Luca Sig-
norelli and Raphael in their arabesques are deeply struck by it : Diirer,
defying and playing with it alternately, is almost beaten down again and
again in the distorted faces, hewing halberts, and suspended satyrs of his
arabesques round the polyglot Lord's Prayer ; 2 it takes entire possession
of Balzac in the Contes Drolatiques ; 3 it struck Scott in the earliest days
of his childish "visions" intensified by the axe-stroke murder of his grand
aunt (L. i. 142,4 and see close of this note). It chose for him the subject
of The Heart of Midlothian, and produced afterwards all the recurrent ideas
of executions, tainting Nigel, almost spoiling Quentin Durward — utterly The
Fair Maid of Perth : 5 and culminating in Bizarro (L. x. 1 4-9 6). It suggested
all the deaths by falling, or sinking, as in delirious sleep — Kennedy,
Eveline Neville (nearly repeated in Clara Mowbray), Amy Robsart, the
Master of Ravenswood in the quicksand, Morris, and Corporal Grace-be-
here7 — compare the dream of Gride, in Nicholas Nickleby, and Dickens's
own last words, on the ground 8 (so also, in my own inflammation of the
1 [See Epodes, v. and xvii. (on the witchcraft of Canidia). For images of " Hermes-
like deformity," etc., set up at cross-roads, see Thucydides, vi. £?•]
2 [In the "Prayer-book of the Emperor Maximilian": for which see Vol. XXX.
p. 251.]
3 [For other references in the same sense to the Contes Drolatiques, see Vol. XVII.
pp. 344-345, and Vol. XIX. p. 33.]
4 [Lockhart's Life of Scott: "The maid-servant, in a sudden access of insanity,
struck her mistress to death with a coal-axe, and then rushed furiously into the
street with the bloody weapon in her hand." This was the occasion on which "the
first images of horror from the scenes of real life were stamped upon his mind."
Ruskin's references are to Black's edition, in 10 volumes (1869).]
8 [For the taint of executions in Nigel, see the account of the cutting off of Stubbs's
hand in ch. xxx., and the mention of the rack in ch. xxxv. ; in Quentin Durward,
see, e.g., chaps, vi. and xxxiv. ; in the Fair Maid, the deaths of Sir John Ramorny
and Bonthron in ch. xxxii. (and the latter's earlier escape from hanging, ch. xxiii.).]
' [Where Lockhart gives, from Scott's diary (Naples, January 1832), the account
of "the death of II Bizarro" from the unpublished tale of that name.]
7 [For these incidents, see Guy Mannering, ch. ix. ; The Antiquary, ch. xxxiii.
(though Eveline did not in fact so die, see ch. xxix.); St. Ronan's Well, ch. xxxviii. ;
Kenilworth, ch. xli. ; Bride of Lammermoor, ch. xxxiv. ; Morris, Sob Roy, ch. xxxi. ;
and for the death of Corporal Grace-be-here Humgudgeon, flung from the tower
by Albert, Woodstock, ch. xxxiv.]
8 [See Forster's Life, voL iii. p. 501 : " After a slight struggle he sank heavily
on his left side. 'On the ground' were the last words he spoke." The "dream
of Gride " is a slip on Ruskin's part for the dream of Bray on the night before
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 279
of the Morgue, having its central root thus in the lie de
Paris — or historically and pre-eminently the " Cite' de Paris "
— is, when understood deeply, the precise counter-corruption
of the religion of the Sainte Chapelle, just as the worst
forms of bodily and mental ruin are the corruption of love.
I have therefore called it J " Fiction mecroyante," with literal
brain, two years ago, I dreamed that I fell through the earth and came
out on the other side). In its grotesque and distorting power, it produced
all of the figures of the Lay Goblin, Pacolet, Flibbertigibbet, Cockledemoy,
Geoffrey Hudson, Fenella, and Necbatanus ; 2 in Dickens it in like manner
gives Quilp, Krook, Smike, Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs
and wax-work of Nell's caravan ; 3 and runs entirely wild in Barnaby Rudge,
where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a
gentleman-fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a black-
guard, a hangman, a shrivelled virago, and a doll in ribands4 — carrying
this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the
madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a
bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness,
he cannot yet be content without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and
marrying him to the doll in a wooden one ; the shapeless shop- boy being
finally also married in two wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe,
which is the very sign manual of the plague ; joined, in the artistic forms
of it, with a love of thorniness5 — (in their mystic root, the truncation of
the limbless serpent and the spines of the dragon's wing. Compare Modern
Painters, vol. iv., "Chapter on the Mountain Gloom," s. 19°); and in
all forms of it, with petrifaction or loss of power by cold in the blood,
whence the last Darwinian process of the witches' charm — "cool it with
the contemplated marriage of his daughter Madeline to Gride. " As I stretched
out my hand to take Madeline's and lead her down, the floor sunk with me . . .
and I alighted in a grave" (ch. liv.).]
1 [This is a slip which escaped Ruskin's notice on revision. It was in the first
draft, as the MS. shows, that he had distinguished " Fiction Croyante and Mecro-
yante " ; but the passage was afterwards recast, and this distinction disappeared.
On the words "mecroyante," "miscreant," see Vol. XXVJI. pp. 81 »., 466.J
2 [The " Lay Goblin " is the dwarf page of Lord Cranstoun in The Lay of the
Last Minstrel, canto ii. 31 ; for Pacolet (Norna's dwarf), see The Pirate, ch. xxvii. ;
for Flibbertigibbet, see King Lear, Act iii. sc. 4, line 120, and "Dickie Sludge"
in Kenilworth, ch. x. ; Cockledemoy (the elfish rogue in Marston's comedy of The
Dutch Courtesan) comes in Scott's play The Doom of Devorgoil (1829) ; Sir Geoffrey
Hudson is the Queen's dwarf in Peveril of the Peak; Fenella, alias Zarah, another
dwarf in the same book ; Necbatanus is the Queen's dwarf in The Talisman.]
3 [For another reference to Quilp (Old Curiosity Shop), see Vol. VII. p. 355 ;
to Mr. Krook (proprietor of a rag-and-bottle shop) in Bleak House, above, § 8 ;
for Grandfather Smallweed, see ibid., ch. xxi. , etc.; for Miss Mowcher, "a pursy
dwarf," David Copperfield, ch. xxii. ; for Smike, Nicholas Nickleby ; and for the
dwarfs waited on by the giants (according to Mr. Vuffin), and for Mrs. Jarley's
wax-works, see The Old Curiosity Shop, chaps, xix., xxvi. seq.]
* [Compare Ariadne Florentina, § 234 (Vol. XXII. p. 4(57), where Ruskin gives
a similar summary of the ingredients of Bamaby Rudge.~\
4 [Compare Proserpina, Vol. XXV. p. 404 n.J • [Vol. VI. p. 400.]
280 ON THE OLD ROAD
accuracy and precision : according to the explanation of the
word, which the reader may find in any good French dic-
tionary,'"" and round its Arctic pole in the Morgue, he
a baboon's blood, then the charm is firm and good." l The two frescoes
in the colossal handbills which have lately decorated the streets of London
(the baboon with the mirror, and the Maskelyne and Cooke decapitation2)
are the final English forms of Raphael's arabesque under this influence ;
and it is well worth while to get the number for the week ending April 3,
1880, of " Young Folks — a magazine of instructive and entertaining litera-
ture for boys and girls of all ages," containing " A Sequel to Desdichado "
(the modern development of Ivanhoe),3 in which a quite monumental ex-
ample of the kind of art in question will be found as a leading illustration
of this characteristic sentence, "See, good Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "my
hand has been struck off. You must make me a hand of iron, one with springs
in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger." The text is also, as it professes
to be, instructive ; being the ultimate degeneration of what I have above
called the "folly" of Ivanhoe; for the folly begets folly down, and down;
and whatever Scott and Turner did wrong has thousands of imitators —
their wisdom none will so much as hear, how much less follow !
In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil
and good are alike conditions of literal vision : and therefore also, inseparably
connected with the state of the health. I believe the first elements of
all Scott's errors were in the milk of his consumptive nurse, which all but
killed him as an infant (L. i. 19) — and was without doubt the cause of
the teething fever that ended in his lameness (L. i. 20). Then came (if
the reader caves to know what I mean by " Fors," let him read the page
carefully) the fearful accidents to his only sister, and her death (L. i. 17);4
then the madness of his nurse, who planned his own murder (21), then
the stories continually told him of the executions at Carlisle (24), his aunt's
husband having seen them ; issuing, he himself scarcely knows how, in the
unaccountable terror that came upon him at the sight of statuary (31) —
especially Jacob's ladder ; then the murder of Mrs. Swinton,5 and finally
the nearly fatal bursting of the blood-vessel at Kelso, with the succeeding
nervous illness (65-67) — solaced, while he was being "bled and blistered
till he had scarcely a pulse left," by that history of the Knights of Malta
— fondly dwelt on and realised by actual modelling of their fortress, which
returned to his mind for the theme of its last effort in passing away.6
* " Se dit par denigrement, d'un chretien qui ne croit pas les dogmes
de sa religion." — Fleming, vol. ii. p. 659.
1 [Macbeth, Act iv. sc. 1.]
2 [The former was the ugly advertisement of a " monkey brand " soap ; for
Maskelyne and Cooke's entertainment, see above, p. 252.]
3 [Thundersleigh ; or, The Knighfs Quest. A Sequel, etc., by Alfred R. Phillips,
ch. xxvii. In No. 487 (vol. xvi. p. 259) of Young Folks. For Desdichado, see
Ivanhoe, ch. viii.]
4 [" I had an only sister, Anne Scott, who seemed to be from her cradle the
butt for mischance to shoot arrows at." Then follows an account of the accidents.]
1 [His great-aunt : see the passage quoted above from Lockhart, vol. i. p. 142.J
* [For The Siege of Malta, the story commenced by Scott shortly before his death, see
Lockhart, vol. x. p. 160. For Scott's modelling of the fortress, see ibid., vol. i. p. 66.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 281
may gather into one Caina1 of gelid putrescence the entire
product of modern infidel imagination, amusing itself with
destruction of the body, and busying itself with aberration
of the mind.
16. Aberration, palsy, or plague, observe, as distinguished
from normal evil, just as the venom of rabies or cholera
differs from that of a wasp or a viper. The life of the
insect and serpent deserves, or at least permits, our
thoughts; not so the stages of agony in the fury-driven
hound. There is some excuse, indeed, for the pathologic
labour of the modern novelist in the fact that he cannot
easily, in a city population, find a healthy mind to vivi-
sect : but the greater part of such amateur surgery is the
struggle, in an epoch of wild literary competition, to
obtain novelty of material. The varieties of aspect and
colour in healthy fruit, be it sweet or sour, may be within
certain limits described exhaustively. Not so the blotches
of its conceivable blight: and while the symmetries of in-
tegral human character can only be traced by harmonious
and tender skill, like the branches of a living tree, the
faults and gaps of one gnawed away by corroding accident
can be shuffled into senseless change like the wards of a
Chubb lock.
17. (V.) It is needless to insist on the vast field for this
dice-cast or card-dealt calamity which opens itself in the
ignorance, money-interest, and mean passion, of city mar-
riage. Peasants know each other as children — meet, as they
grow up in testing labour ; and if a stout farmer's son
marries a handless girl, it is his own fault. Also in the
patrician families of the field, the young people know what
they are doing, and marry a neighbouring estate, or a
covetable title, with some conception of the responsibilities
they undertake. But even among these, their season in the
confused metropolis creates licentious and fortuitous tempta-
tion before unknown ; and in the lower middle orders, an
entirely new kingdom of discomfort and disgrace has been
1 [Inferno, xxxii. Compare Vol. XVIII. p. 99.]
282 ON THE OLD ROAD
preached to them in the doctrines of unbridled pleasure
which are merely an apology for their peculiar forms of
ill-breeding. It is quite curious how often the catastrophe,
or the leading interest, of a modern novel, turns upon
the want, both in maid and bachelor, of the common self-
command which was taught to their grandmothers and
grandfathers as the first element of ordinarily decent be-
haviour. Rashly inquiring the other day the plot of a
modern story1 from a female friend, I elicited, after some
hesitation, that it hinged mainly on the young people's
" forgetting themselves in a boat " ; and I perceive it to be
accepted as nearly an axiom in the code of modern civic
chivalry that the strength of amiable sentiment is proved
by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, and on
improper ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of
the old school used to be in his power of saying what he
meant, and being silent when he ought (not to speak of
the higher nobleness which bestowed love where it was
honourable, and reverence where it was due) ; but the auto-
matic amours and involuntary proposals of recent romance
acknowledge little further law of morality than the instinct
of an insect, or the effervescence of a chemical mixture.
18. There is a pretty little story of Alfred de Musset's,
— La Mouche, which, if the reader cares to glance at it,
will save me further trouble in explaining the disciplinarian
authority of mere old-fashioned politeness, as in some sort
protective of higher things. It describes, with much grace
and precision, a state of society by no means pre-eminently
virtuous, or enthusiastically heroic ; in which many people
do extremely wrong, and none sublimely right. But as
there are heights of which the achievement is unattempted,
there are abysses to which fall is barred ; neither accident
nor temptation will make any of the principal personages
swerve from an adopted resolution, or violate an accepted
principle of honour ; people are expected as a matter of
course to speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait
1 [The novel alluded to is The Mill on the Floss. See below, § 108 (p. 377).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 283
with patience when they are bid : those who do wrong
admit it; those who do right don't boast of it; everybody
knows his own mind, and everybody has good manners.
19. Nor must it be forgotten that in the worst days
of the self-indulgence which destroyed the aristocracies of
Europe, their vices, however licentious, were never, in the
fatal modern sense, "unprincipled." The vainest believed
in virtue; the vilest respected it. "Chaque chose avait son
nom,"* and the severest of English moralists recognizes the
accurate wit, the lofty intellect, and the unfretted benevo-
lence, which redeemed from vitiated surroundings the circle
of d'Alembert and MarmonteLf
I have said, with too slight praise, that the vainest,
in those days, " believed " in virtue. Beautiful and heroic
examples of it were always before them ; nor was it with-
out the secret significance attaching to what may seem the
least accidents in the work of a master, that Scott gave
to both his heroines of the age of revolution in England
the name of the queen of the highest order of English
chivalry.J
20. It is to say little for the types of youth and maid
which alone Scott felt it a joy to imagine, or thought it
honourable to portray, that they act and feel in a sphere
where they are never for an instant liable to any of the
weaknesses which disturb the calm, or shake the resolution,
* "A son nom," properly. The sentence is one of Victor Cherbuliez's,
in Prosper Randoce, which is full of other valuable ones. See the old
nurse's " ici has les choses vont tie travers, comrae un chien qui va a
vepres," p. Q3 ; and compare Prosper's treasures, " la petite Venus, et le
petit Christ d'ivoire," p. 121 ; also Madame Brehanne's request for the
divertissement of " quelque belle batterie a coups de couteau " with Didier's
answer. " Helas ! mudame, vous jouez de malheur, iei dans la Drome, Ton
se massacre aussi peu que possible," p. 33.
t Edgeworth's Tales (Hunter, 1827), Harrington and Ormond, vol. iii.
p. 260.
J Alice of Salisbury, Alice Lee, Alice Bridgnorth.1
1 [For "Alice of Salisbury" as "queen of chivalry," see Fors Clavigera, Letter 31
(Vol. XXVII. pp. 5f)9, 570). For other references to Alice Lee (Woodstock) and
Alice Bridgnortn (Peveril of the Peak), see Seaame and Lilies, § 59 (Vol. XVIII.
p. 116), and Prteterita, i. § 165.]
284 ON THE OLD ROAD
of chastity and courage in a modern novel. Scott lived in
a country and time, when, from highest to lowest, but
chiefly in that dignified and nobly severe* middle class to
which he himself belonged, a habit of serene and .stainless
thought was as natural to the people as their mountain air.
Women like Rose Bradwardine and Ailie Dinmont1 were
the grace and guard of almost every household (God be
praised that the race of them is not yet extinct, for all
that Mall or Boulevard can do), and it has perhaps escaped
the notice of even attentive readers that the comparatively
uninteresting character of Sir Walter's heroes2 had always
been studied among a class of youths who were simply
incapable of doing anything seriously wrong ; and could
only be embarrassed by the consequences of their levity or
imprudence.
21. But there is another difference in the woof of a
Waverley novel from the cobweb of a modern one, which
depends on Scott's larger view of human life. Marriage is
by no means, in his conception of man and woman, the
most important business of their existence;! nor love the
only reward to be proposed to their virtue or exertion. It
is not in his reading of the laws of Providence a necessity
* Scott's father was habitually ascetic. " I have heard his son tell
that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soup was
good, to taste it again, and say, ' Yes — it is too good, bairns/ and dash a
tumbler of cold water into his plate." — Lockhart's Life (Black, Edinburgh,
186p), vol. i. p. 312. In other places I refer to this book in the simple
form of "L."
t A young lady sang to me, just before I copied out this page for
press, a Miss Somebody's " great song," " Live, and Love, and Die." Had
it been written for nothing better than silkworms, it should at least have
added — Spin.
1 [For other references to Rose Bradwardine (Waverley}, see again Vol. XVIII.
p. 115 ; for Ailie Dinmont, see Guy Mannering, chaps, xxiii. and xxvi.]
2 [Compare once more Sesame and Lilies, § 59 (Vol. XVIII. p. 115). "When
Ruskin used to read Scott aloud to us at Brantwood, Mrs. Severn would some-
times question the way in which his heroes fall asleep after the most startling
adventures. I remember," says Mr. Wedderburn, " once saying (with Ruskin's warm
approval), ' Yes, it's because they never have anything on their conscience,' arid
suggesting that an exception in the case of Morton's disturbed rest after he has
sheltered Balfour in Old Mortality may be due not only to the events of the
day, but to doubt whether he has done right to do so."]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 285
that virtue should, either by love or any other external
blessing, be rewarded at all ; * and marriage is in all cases
thought of as a constituent of the happiness of life, but
not as its only interest, still less its only aim. And upon
analysing with some care the motives of his principal
stories, we shall often find that the love in them is merely
a light by which the sterner features of character are to
be irradiated, and that the marriage of the hero is as
subordinate to the main bent of the story as Henry the
Fifth's courtship of Katherine * is to the battle of Agincourt.
Nay, the fortunes of the person who is nominally the sub-
ject of the tale are often little more than a background
on which grander figures are to be drawn, and deeper
fates forthshadowed. The judgments between the faith and
chivalry of Scotland at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge
owe little of their interest in the mind of a sensible reader
to the fact that the captain of the Popinjay is carried a
prisoner to one battle, and returns a prisoner from the
other : 2 and Scott himself, while he watches the white sail
that bears Queen Mary for the last time from her native
land, very nearly forgets to finish his novel, or to tell us
— and with small sense of any consolation to be had out
of that minor circumstance, — that " Roland and Catherine
were united, spite of their differing faiths."3
22. Neither let it be thought for an instant that the
* See passage of introduction to Ivanhoe, wisely quoted in L. vi. 176.4
1 [Compare For* Clawgera, Letter 91 (Vol. XXIX. p. 444).]
* [For the battle of Drumclog, see Old Mortality, chaps, xiv.-xvi. (and note k) ;
for that of Bothwell Bridge, ibid., chaps, xxx.-xxxi. ; and for young Morton's
success as captain of the Popinjay, ibid., ch. Hi.]
* [See the last sentence of The Abbot.]
* [" The writer was censured because, when arranging the fates of the characters
of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than
the less interesting Roweua. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age
rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe that
he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded rather than
exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the
recompense which providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit ; and it is a
dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of
romance, that rectitude of conduct and principle are either naturally allied with,
or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or attainments of our
wishes."]
286 ON THE OLD ROAD
slight, and sometimes scornful, glance with which Scott
passes over scenes which a novelist of our own day would
have analysed with the airs of a philosopher, and painted
with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates any absence in
his heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements
of personal happiness. An era like ours, which has with
diligence and ostentation swept its heart clear of all the
passions once known as loyalty, patriotism, and piety,
necessarily magnifies the apparent force of the one remain-
ing sentiment which sighs through the barren chambers, or
clings inextricably round the chasms of ruin; nor can it
but regard with awe the unconquerable spirit which still
tempts or betrays the sagacities of selfishness into error or
frenzy which is believed to be love.
That Scott was never himself, in the sense of the
phrase as employed by lovers of the Parisian school, "ivre
d'amour," may be admitted without prejudice to his sensi-
bility,* and that he never knew "1'amor che move '1 sol e
1'altre stelle,"1 was the chief, though unrecognized, calamity
of his deeply chequered life. But the reader of honour
and feeling will not therefore suppose that the love which
Miss Vernon sacrifices, stooping for an instant from her
horse,2 is of less noble stamp, or less enduring faith, than
that which troubles and degrades the whole existence of
Consuelo;8 or that the affection of Jeanie Deans for the
companion of her childhood, drawn like a field of soft blue
heaven beyond the cloudy wrack of her sorrow, is less fully
in possession of her soul than the hesitating and self-
reproachful impulses under which a modern heroine forgets
herself in a boat,4 or compromises herself in the cool of the
evening.
* See below, note to § 27 (p. 292), on the conclusion of Woodstock.
1 \Paradiso, last line : compare Vol. XXVIII. p. 166.]
2 [See Rob Roy, ch. xxxiii. ; on the character of Diana Vernon, compare Val
d'Arno, § 212 (Vol. XXIII. p. 125) ; and for other references to Jeanie Deans
and The Heart of Midlothian, see General Index.]
3 [For another reference to Consuelo, see below, § 107 (p. 376) ; and for George
Sand generally, Vol. XXIX. p. 588 «.]
4 [See above, § 17, p. 282.J
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 287
23. I do not wish to return over the waste ground we
have traversed, comparing, point by point, Scott's manner
with those of Bermondsey and the Faubourgs ; but it may
be, perhaps, interesting at this moment to examine, with
illustration from those Waverley novels which have so lately
retracted the attention of a fair and gentle public,1 the
universal conditions of "style," rightly so called, which are
in all ages, and above all local currents or wavering tides
of temporary manners, pillars of what is for ever strong,
and models of what is for ever fair.2
But I must first define, and that within strict horizon,
the works of Scott, in which his perfect mind may be
known, and his chosen ways understood.
His great works of prose fiction, excepting only the
first half-volume of Waverley, were all written in twelve
years, 1814-26 (of his own age forty -three to fifty-five), the
actual time employed in their composition being not more
than a couple of months out of each year ; and during that
time only the morning hours and spare minutes during the
professional day. " Though the first volume of Waverley
was begun long ago, and actually lost for a time, yet the
other two were begun and finished between the 4th of
June and the 1st of July, during all which I attended
my duty in court3 and proceeded without loss of time or
hindrance of business."*5
Few of the maxims for the enforcement of which, in
Modern Painters, long ago, I got the general character of
a lover of paradox,4 are more singular, or more sure, than
* L. iv. 177.
1 [The reference is to a series of "Waverley Tableaux," arranged by various
Royal Academicians, in London, at the house of Sir Charles and Lady Freake,
shortly before the publication of this paper.]
1 [The subject is again referred to in § 28, but is there postponed ; and is not
ultimately reached till § 65.]
3 [As Clerk of Session.]
4 [A criticism to which Ruskin frequently refers : see, for instance, Aratra
Pentelici, § 97 (Vol. XX. p. 264) ; Eagles Neat, S 89 ; and Ariadne Florentina, § 78
(Vol. XXII. pp. 187, 349).]
288 ON THE OLD ROAD
the statement, apparently so encouraging to the idle, that
if a great thing can be done at all, it can be done easily.1
But it is that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms
after long years of gathered strength, and all Scott's great
writings were the recreations of a mind confirmed in duti-
ful labour, and rich with organic gathering of boundless
resource.
Omitting from our count the two minor and ill-finished
sketches of The Black Dwarf* and Legend of Montrose,
and, for a reason presently to be noticed,3 the unhappy
St. Ronan's, the memorable romances of Scott are eighteen,
falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.
24. The first group is distinguished from the other two
by characters of strength and felicity which never more
appeared after Scott was struck down by his terrific ill-
ness in 1819. It includes Waverley, Guy Mannering, The
Antiquary, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, and The Heart of
Midlothian.
The composition of these occupied the mornings of his
happiest days, between the ages of forty-three and forty-
eight. On the 8th of April, 1819 (he was forty-eight on
the preceding 15th of August), he began for the first time
to dictate — being unable for the exertion of writing — The
Bride of Lammermoor, " the affectionate Laidlaw beseech-
ing him to stop dictating when his audible suffering filled
every pause. ' Nay, Willie,' he answered, ' only see that
the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry as well
as all the wool to ourselves ; but as for giving over work,
that can only be when I am in woollen.'"* From this
time forward the brightness of joy and sincerity of inevit-
able humour, which perfected the imagery of the earlier
novels, are wholly absent, except in the two short intervals
* L. vi. 67.
1 [Modern Painters, vols. i., ii., and iii. (VoL in. p. 122; Vol. IV. p. 28;3 ;
Vol. V. p. 333).]
- [For ill-finished state of The Black Dwarf and its repulsive subject, see the
end of Scott's own Introduction to the novel.]
3 [See below, p. 292.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 289
of health unaccountably restored, in which he wrote Red-
gauntlet and Nigel.
It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity
of Scott's genius, that these revivals of earlier power were
unconscious, and that the time of extreme weakness in
which he wrote St. Ronaris Well, was that in which he
first asserted his own restoration.1
25. It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his
noble nature that he never gains anything by sickness ; the
whole man breathes or faints as one creature: the ache
that stiffens a limb chills his heart, and every pang of his
stomach paralyses the brain.2 It is not so with inferior
minds, in the workings of which it is often impossible to
distinguish native from narcotic fancy, and the throbs of
conscience from those of indigestion. Whether in exalta-
tion or languor, the colours of mind are always morbid
which gleam on the sea for the " Ancient Mariner," and
through the casements on "St. Agnes' Eve";3 but Scott is
at once blinded and stultified by sickness ; never has a fit
of the cramp without spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps
1 [It is difficult to follow Ruskiu here. The Fortunes of Nigel was written iu
1821-1822 and published in May 1822. Writing to a friend in 1821 at the time,
Scott speaks of his health being "restored to its usual tone" (Lockhart, vi. 400).
St. Ronann Well was written in 1823, and published in December of that year, at
which time a friend records Scott's health as being "less broken, and his spirits
more youthful and buoyant" than at a later date (Lockhart, vii. 182). "Imme-
diately on the conclusion of St. Ronan's Well, Sir Walter began Redgauntlet (ibid.,
213), and it was published in June 1824.]
2 [Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 92, § 7 (Vol. XXIX. p. 455), where Ruskiu
refers to this passage (§§ 24-27). His theory, however, does not fit the true dates.
He gives as the date of the production of Scott's twelve greatest novels 1814-1826,
and 1819 as "the year of his terrific illness," after which date 110 novel shows "the
characters of strength and felicity " which marked the earlier group, including Rod
Roy and The Heart of Midlothian. The actual date when the illness first attacked him
was, however, 1817 ; and Rob Roy and The Heart of Midlothian were both composed
through recurrent fits of acute bodily pain. " Lightly and airily as Rob Roy reads,
the author has struggled almost throughout," says Lockhart, "with the pains of
cramp or lassitude of opium. Calling on him one day to dun him for copy, James
Ballantyne found him with a clean pen and a blank sheet before him, and uttered
some rather solemn exclamation of surprise. 'Ay, ay, Jemmy,' said he, ' 'tis
easy for you to bid me get on, but how the deuce can I make Hob Roy's wife
speak with a curmurring in my guts?'" (vol. v. p. 268).]
3 [For Ruskin's general criticism of Coleridge, see Vol. IV. pp. 391-392 ; and
for a passage in which he discusses the morbid taint in Keats (again instancing
St. Agnes' s Eve), ibid., p. 379.]
290
the only author of vivid imagination who never wrote a
foolish word but when he was ill.
It remains only to be noticed on this point that any
strong natural excitement, affecting the deeper springs of
his heart, would at once restore his intellectual powers to
their fulness, and that, far towards their sunset : but that
the strong will on which he prided himself, though it could
trample upon pain, silence grief, and compel industry, never
could warm his imagination, or clear the judgment, in his
darker hours.
I believe that this power of the heart over the intellect
is common to all great men : but what the special character
of emotion was, that alone could lift Scott above the power
of death, I am about to ask the reader, in a little while,
to observe with joyful care.
26. The first series of romances then, above-named, are
all that exhibit the emphasis of his unharmed faculties. The
second group, composed in the three years subsequent to
illness all but mortal, bear every one of them more or less
the seal of it.
They consist of The Bride of Lammermoor, Ivanhoe, The
Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth, and The Pirate.* The
marks of broken health on all these are essentially twofold
— prevailing melancholy, and fantastic improbability. Three
of the tales are agonisingly tragic, The Abbot scarcely less
so in its main event, and Ivanhoe deeply wounded through
all its bright panoply ; while even in that most powerful
of the series the impossible archeries and axe-strokes, the
incredibly opportune appearances of Locksley, the death
of Ulrica, and the resuscitation of Athelstane, are partly
boyish, partly feverish.1 Caleb in The Bride, Triptolemus
* " One other such novel, and there's an end ; but who can last for
ever? who ever lasted so long?" — Sydney Smith (of The Pirate) to Jeffrey,
December SO, 1821. (Letters, vol. ii. p. 223.2)
1 [See Ivanhoe, chaps, vii., xi., xiii., xix., xx., xxvv xxxii., xl. ; xxxi. ; aiid xlii.]
2 \A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, by hits daughter, Lady Holland, with a
Selection from his Letters, edited by Mrs. Austin, 2 vols., 1855.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 291
and Halcro in The Pirate, are all laborious, and the first
incongruous ; half a volume of The Abbot is spent in
extremely dull detail of Roland's relations with his fellow-
servants and his mistress, which have nothing whatever
to do with the future story ; and the lady of Avenel
herself disappears after the first volume,1 "like a snaw-
wreath when it's thaw, Jeanie." The public has for itself
pronounced on The Monastery, though as much too harshly
as it has foolishly praised the horrors of Ravenswood3 and
the nonsense of Ivanhoe ; because the modern public finds
in the torture and adventure of these, the kind of ex-
citement which it seeks at an opera, while it has no
sympathy whatever with the pastoral happiness of Glen-
dearg, or with the lingering simplicities of superstition
which give historical likelihood to the legend of the White
Lady.
But both this despised tale and its sequel have Scott's
heart in them. The first was begun to refresh himself in
the intervals of artificial labour on Ivanhoe. " It was a
relief," he said, "to interlay the scenery most familiar to
me * with the strange world for which I had to draw so
much on imagination." Through all the closing scenes of
the second he is raised to his own true level by his love
for the queen. And within the code of Scott's work to
which I am about to appeal for illustration of his essential
* L. vi. p. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, vii. 192. 4
1 [See chap. viii. of The Monastery, in which the Lady of Avenel passes away ;
for Glendearg, see ibid., Introduction and ch. ii.]
1 [See Lady Nairne's The Land »' the Leal: —
" I'm wearing awa', Jean,
Like snaw when it's thaw, Jean,
I'm wearing awa'
To the land o' the leal."]
3 [See Lockhart, vi. pp. 255-256, on the unfavourable reception given to The
Monastery. On the favourable reception of The Bride of Lammermoor and Ivanhoe,
ibid., pp. 87, 174.]
* [" It required no cicerone to tell that the glen was that in which Father
Eustace, in The Monastery, is intercepted by the White Lady of Aveuel."]
XXXIV. T
292 ON THE OLD ROAD
powers, I accept the Monastery and Abbot, and reject from
it the remaining four of this group.
27. The last series contains two quite noble ones, Red
gauntlet and Nigel; two of very high value, Durward and
Woodstock ; the slovenly and diffuse Peveril, written for the
trade ; * the sickly Tales of the Crusaders, and the entirely
broken and diseased St. Ronan's Well This last I throw
out of count altogether, and of the rest, accept only the
four first named as sound work ; so that the list of the
novels in which I propose to examine his methods and
ideal standards, reduces itself to these following twelve1
(named in order of production) : Waverhy, Gkiy Manner-
ing, The Antiquary, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Heart
of Midlothian, The Monastery, The Abbot, Redgauntkt, The
Fortunes of Nigel, Quentin Durward, and Woodstock.]
28. It is, however, too late to enter on my subject in
this article, which I may fitly close by pointing out some
of the merely verbal characteristics of his style, illustrative
* All, alas ! were now in a great measure so written. Ivanhoe, The
Monastery, The Abbot, and Kenilworth were all published between Decem-
ber 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. giving five thousand guineas
for the remaining copyright of them, Scott clearing ten thousand before
the bargain was completed ; and " before The Fortunes of Nigel issued from
the press Scott had exchanged instruments and received his bookseller's
bills for no less than four ' works of fiction,' not one of them otherwise
described in the deeds of agreement, to be produced in unbroken succes-
sion, each of them to fill up at least three volumes, but with proper saving
clauses as to increase of copy money in case any of them should run to four ;
and within two years all this anticipation had been wiped off by Peveril
of the Peak, Quentin Durrvard, St. Ronan's Well, and Redgauntlet." 2
t Woodstock was finished 26th March, 1826. He knew then of his
ruin ; and wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness.3 The closing pages
are the most beautiful of the book. But a month afterwards Lady Scott
died ; and he never wrote glad word more.
1 [At a later date Ruskin drew up a shorter list (omitting the last three iiamed
above): see the letter of "Whit Tuesday 1887" now included in Arrows of the
Chace (below, p. 607). Compare also Prceterita, iii. § 72. The true order is :
Waverley, 1814; Guy Mannering, 1815; Old Mortality, 1816; Rob Roy, 1817; Heart
of Midlothian, 1818; The Monastery, 1820; The Abbot, 1820; Fortunes of Nigel, 1822 ;
Quentin Durward, 1823; Redgauntlet, 1824; Woodstock, 1826.]
8 [Lockhart, vi. 422-423.]
8 [Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 32 (Vol. XXVII. p. 585).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 293
in little ways of the questions we have been examining,
and chiefly of the one which may be most embarrassing to
many readers, the difference, namely, between character and
disease.
One quite distinctive charm in the Waverleys is their
modified use of the Scottish dialect ; but it has not generally
been observed, either by their imitators, or the authors of
different taste who have written for a later public, that
there is a difference between the dialect of a language, and
its corruption.
A dialect is formed in any district where there are per-
sons of intelligence enough to use the language itself in all
its fineness and force, but under the particular conditions of
life, climate, and temper, which introduce words peculiar to
the scenery, forms of word and idioms of sentence peculiar
to the race, and pronunciations indicative of their character
and disposition.
Thus " burn " (of a streamlet) is a word possible only
in a country where there are brightly running waters,
" lassie," a word possible only where girls are as free as
the rivulets, and " auld," a form of the southern " old,"
adopted by a race of finer musical ear than the English.
On the contrary, mere deteriorations, or coarse, stridu-
lent, and, in the ordinary sense of the phrase, " broad "
forms of utterance, are not dialects at all, having nothing
dialectic in them ; and all phrases developed in states of
rude employment, and restricted intercourse, are injurious
to the tone and narrowing to the power of the language
they affect. Mere breadth of accent does not spoil a dia-
lect as long as the speakers are men of varied idea and
good intelligence ; but the moment the life is contracted
by mining, millwork, or any oppressive and monotonous
labour, the accents and phrases become debased. It is part
of the popular folly of the day to find pleasure in trying
to write and spell these abortive, crippled, and more or
less brutal forms of human speech.
29. Abortive, crippled, or brutal, are however not
294 ON THE OLD ROAD
necessarily " corrupted " dialects. Corrupt language is that
gathered by ignorance, invented by vice, misused by in-
sensibility, or minced and mouthed by affectation, especially
in the attempt to deal with words of which only half the
meaning is understood or hah0 the sound heard. Mrs.
Gamp's "aperiently so" — and the " underminded " with
primal sense of undermine, of — I forget which gossip, in
The Mill on the Floss, are master- and mistress-pieces in
this latter kind. Mrs. Malaprop's " allegories on the banks
of the Nile " are in somewhat higher order of mistake : *
Mrs. Tabitha Bramble's ignorance is vulgarized by her
selfishness, and Winifred Jenkins' by her conceit.2 The
"wot" of Noah Claypole,3 and the other degradations of
cockneyism (Sam Weller and his father are in nothing
more admirable than in the power of heart and sense that
can purify even these) ; the " terewth " of Mr. Chadband,4
and " natur " of Mr. Squeers, are examples of the corruption
of words by insensibility : the use of the word " bloody "
in modern low English is a deeper corruption, not altering
the form of the word, but defiling the thought in it.
Thus much being understood, I shall proceed to ex-
amine thoroughly a fragment of Scott's Lowland Scottish
dialect ; not choosing it of the most beautiful kind ; on the
contrary, it shall be a piece reaching as low down as he
ever allows Scotch to go — it is perhaps the only unfair
patriotism in him, that if ever he wants a word or two
of really villainous slang, he gives it in English or Dutch
— not Scotch.
1 [The references here are to : (i.) " ' Do you know who you're talking to,
ma'am ? ' ' Aperiently,' said Mrs. Gamp, surveying her with scorn from head to
foot, 'to Betsey Prig. Aperiently so. I know her. No one better'" (Martin
Chuzzlemt, ch. xlix.). (ii.) Mrs. Glegg : " ' It 'ud be more fitting if you'd bring
him into the house, and let his aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in
corners, in that plotting, underminding way ' " (Mill on the Floss, Book v. ch. ii.).
(iii.) Sheridan's Rivals, Act iii. sc. 3 (" as headstrong as an allegory on the banks
of the Nile").]
2 [For other references to Smollett's Humphry Clinker, see Vol. I. p. 417, and
Prceterita, i. § 166.]
3 [For another reference to the vulgarity of Noah in Oliver Twist, see Vol. VII.
p. 349.]
4 [Bleak Home, ch. xxv. : compare Vol. XXXII. p. 116.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 295
I had intended in the close of this paper to analyse
and compare the characters of Andrew Fairservice and
Richie Moniplies, for examples, the former of innate evil,
unaffected by external influences, and undiseased, but dis-
tinct from natural goodness as a nettle is distinct from
balm or lavender; and the latter of innate goodness, con-
tracted and pinched by circumstance, but still undiseased,
as an oak-leaf crisped by frost, not by the worm. This,
with much else in my mind, I must put off;1 but the
careful study of one sentence of Andrew's will give us a
good deal to think of.
30. I take his account of the rescue of Glasgow
Cathedral at the time of the Reformation : —
" Ah ! it's a brave kirk — nane o' yere whigmaleeries an curliewurlies and
opensteek hems about it — a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand
as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther afF it. It had auiaist
a douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the kirks
of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to cleanse them o' Papery, and
idolatry, and image-worship, and surplices, and sic-like rags o' the muckle
hure that sitteth on seven hills, as if ane wasna braid eneugh for her auld
hinder end. Sae the commons o' Renfrew, and o' the Barony, and the
Gorbals, and a' about, they behoved to come into Glasgow ae fair morning,
to try their hand on purging the High Kirk o' Popish nicknackets. But
the townsmen o' Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might slip
the girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they rang the common
bell, and assembled the train-bands wi' took o' drum. By good luck, the
worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild that year — (and a gude mason he
was himsell, made him the keener to keep up the auld bigging), and the
trades assembled, and offered downright battle to the commons, rather
than their kirk should coup the crans, as others had done elsewhere. It
wasna for luve o' Paperie — na, na ! — nane could ever say that o' the
trades o' Glasgow — Sae they sune came to an agreement to take a' the
idolatrous statues of sants (sorrow be on them !) out o' their neuks — And
sae the bits o' stane idols were broken in pieces by Scripture warrant,
and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the auld kirk stood as crouse as
a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff her, and a'body was alike pleased.
And I hae heard wise folk say, that if the same had been done in ilka
kirk in Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en now,
and we wad hae mair Christian-like kirks ; for I hae been sae lang in
England, that naething will drived out o' my head, that the dog-kennel
at Osbaldistone-Hall is better than mony a house o' God in Scotland." :
1 [See the Fifth Paper, "T.
1 [Ch. xix. of Rob Roy.]
The Two Servants, pp. 370
296 ON THE OLD ROAD
31. Now this sentence is in the first place a piece
of Scottish history of quite inestimable and concentrated
value. Andrew's temperament is the type of a vast class
of Scottish — shall we call it " sora-thistlian " ? — mind, which
necessarily takes the view of either Pope or saint that the
thistle in Lebanon took of the cedar or lilies in Lebanon ; l
and the entire force of the passions which, in the Scottish
revolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is told
in this one paragraph ; the coarseness of it, observe, being
admitted, not for the sake of the laugh, any more than an
onion in broth merely for its flavour, but for the meat of
it ; the inherent constancy of that coarseness being a fact
in this order of mind, and an essential part of the history
to be told.
Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion
of it, such as there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is
a thief, a liar, a coward, and, in the Fair service from
which he takes his name, a hypocrite ; but in the form of
prejudice, which is all that his mind is capable of in the
place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not in
the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his
master, or any one else ; he honestly scorns the " carnal
morality * as dowd and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule "
of the sermon in the upper cathedral ; and when wrapt in
critical attention to the " real savour o' doctrine " in the
crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of his fair service
as to return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard
punches of the elbow.
Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to
the average standard of Scottish common sense, not a low
one ; and, though incapable of understanding any manner
of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewd measurer of weak-
nesses, and not without a spark or two of kindly feeling.
* Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the same subject.8
'2 Kings xiv. 9 : compare Vol. XXV. p. 288.]
'See Hob Roy, ch. xx.J
For Ruskiii "sitting under Mr. Spurgeon," see above, p. 217 ; and below, p. 659.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 297
See first his sketch of his master's character to Mr. Ham-
morgaw, beginning : " He's no a'thegither sae void o' sense,
neither " ; and then the close of the dialogue : " But the
lad's no a bad lad after a', and he needs some carefu' body
to look after him."1
Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own
business well, and can judge of other craft, if sound, or
otherwise.
All these four qualities of him must be known before
we can understand this single speech. Keeping them in
mind, I take it up, word by word.
32. You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt
whatever to indicate accents or modes of pronunciation by
changed spelling, unless the word becomes a quite definitely
new, and securely writeable one. The Scottish way of pro-
nouncing "James," for instance, is entirely peculiar, and
extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because
it does not change the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor
into Jawms. A modern writer of dialects would think it
amusing to use one or other of these ugly spellings. But
Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that a
Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be
wise in letting it alone. On the other hand he writes
" weel " for " well," because that word is complete in its
change, and may be very closely expressed by the double e.
The ambiguous us in " gude " and " sune " are admitted,
because far liker the sound than the double o would be,
and that in " hure," for grace' sake, to soften the word ;
so also "flaes" for "fleas." "Mony" for "many" is again
positively right in sound, and "neuk" differs from our
" nook " in sense, and is not the same word at all, as we
shall presently see.2
Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any in-
decent haste, slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of pro-
nunciation. There is no lisping, drawling, slobbering, or
See Rob Roy, ch. xxi.]
To this point, however, Ruskin did not revert.]
298 ON THE OLD ROAD
snuffling: the speech is as clear as a bell and as keen
as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions are either
melodious, ("na," for " not,"— " pu'd," for "pulled,") or as
normal as in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered
without the slightest bungling ; and " bigging " finished to
its last g.
33. I take the important words now in their places.
Brave. The old English sense of the word in " to go
brave," l retained, expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful
admiration. Had he meant to insinuate a hint of the
church's being too fine, he would have said " braw."
Kirk. This is of course just as pure and unprovincial
a word as " Kirche," or " eglise."
Whigmaleerie. I cannot get at the root of this word,2 but
it is one showing that the speaker is not bound by classic
rules, but will use any syllables that will enrich his mean-
ing. " Nipperty-tipperty " (of his master's " poetry-non-
sense")3 is another word of the same class. *' Curliewurlie"
is of course just as pure as Shakespeare's " Hurlyburly."
But see first suggestion of the idea to Scott at Blair- Adam
(L. vi. 264).4
Opensteek hems. More description, or better, of the
later Gothic cannot be put into four syllables. " Steek,"
melodious for stitch, has a combined sense of closing or
fastening. And note that the later Gothic being precisely
what Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is,
here as elsewhere, quite as much himself* as Frank, that
he is laughing at, when he laughs with Andrew, whose
* There are three definite and intentional portraits of himself, in
the novels, each giving a separate part of himself: Mr. Oldbuck, Frank
Osbaldistone, and Alan Fairford.5
1 [The New English Dictionary quotes, for ^example, " To go more brave than doth
a lord" (1568).]
'• [For a correspondent's note on the subject, see below, p. 368.]
3 [See Rob Roy, ch. xxi.l
4 [On a visit to Blair-Adam, one of Scott's companions had told him a story of
a Professor Wilkie who had said, of Regulus' Tower, "Till I saw that tower and
studied it, I thought the beauty of architecture had consisted in curly wurlies."]
5 [Compare below, § 35 (p. 303), and Vol. XXVII. pp. 575, 585.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 299
" opensteek hems " are only a ruder metaphor for his own
" willow-wreaths changed to stone. ":
Gunpowther. "-Ther" is a lingering vestige of the
French "-dre."
Syne. One of the melodious and mysterious Scottish
words which have partly the sound of wind and stream in
them, and partly the range of softened idea which is like
a distance of blue hills over border land ("far in the dis-
tant Cheviot's blue"2). Perhaps even the least sympathetic
" Englisher " might recognize this, if he heard " Old Long
Since" vocally substituted for the Scottish words to the
air. I do not know the root ; 3 but the word's proper mean-
ing is not " since," but before or after an interval of some
duration, " as weel sune as syne." " But first on Sawnie
gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she enters."4
Behoved (to come}. A rich word, with peculiar idiom,
always used more or less ironically of anything done under
a partly mistaken and partly pretended notion of duty.
Siccan. Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than "such."
It contains an added sense of wonder; and means properly
" so great " or " so unusual."
Took (o' drum}. Classical " tuck " from Italian " toc-
cata," the preluding " touch " or flourish, on any instrument
(but see Johnson under word "tucket," quoting Othello5).
The deeper Scottish vowels are used here to mark the deeper
sound of the bass drum, as in more solemn warning.
1 [From the description of Melrose in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto ii.
stanza 11 : quoted also in Vol. XIV. p. 415, and Vol. XIX. p. 259.]
* [Scott, Introduction to canto iii. of Marmion: quoted in Modern Painters,
vol. iii. (Vol. V. p. 299).]
8 [The root is generally assumed to be the same (sen) as that of the English
since, and the one of Ruskin's meanings seems to flow from the other. Jamieson
(Dictionary of the Scottish Language), for the meaning of " after " or " later," cites
Hamilton's Wallace, p. 318 :—
" Each rogue, altho' with Nick he should combine,
Shall be discovered either sune or syne."]
4 [Burns : Halloween.']
5 [Johnson's Dictionary quotes Othello (Act ii. sc. 3) : " (A tucket sounds :) —
Your husband is at hand ; I hear his trumpet." It is not clear why Ruskiu says
"But see Johnson," as it is Johnson's derivation, etc., that he quotes.]
300 ON THE OLD ROAD
Bigging. The only word in all the sentence of which
the Scottish form is less melodious than the English, "and
what for no," seeing that Scottish architecture is mostly
little beyond Bessie Bell's and Mary Gray's ? " They biggit
a bow're by yon burnside, and theekit it ow're wi' rashes."
But it is pure Anglo-Saxon in roots ; see glossary to Free-
bairn's edition of the Douglas Virgil, 1710.2
Coup. Another of the much-embracing words ; short
for "upset," but with a sense of awkwardness as the in-
herent cause of fall ; compare Richie Moniplies (also for
sense of "behoved"): " Ae auld hirplin deevil of a potter
behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig — "
(earthen pot — etym. dub.), — "as he said 'just to put my
Scotch ointment in ' ; and I gave him a push, as but natural,
and the tottering deevil coupit owre amang his own pigs,
and damaged a score of them." So also Dandie Dinmont
in the postchaise : " 'Od ! I hope they'll no coup us." 3
The Crans. Idiomatic ; root unknown to me, but it
means in this use, fall total, and without recovery.4
Molendinar. From " molendinum," the grinding-place.
I do not know if actually the local name,* or Scott's in-
vention. Compare Sir Piercie's " Molinara." 6 But at all
events used here with bye-sense of degradation of the
formerly idle saints to grind at the mill.
* Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in his con-
ceit ; but, writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook was
called " Molyndona " even before the building of the Sub-dean Mill in
1446. See also account of the locality in Mr. Macgeorge's admirable
1 [See the ballad of " Bessy Bell and Mary Gray," in F. J. Child's English and
Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. iv. p. 75.]
* [VirgiFs JEneis, translated into Scottish Verse by the famous Gawin Douglas,
Bishop of Dunkeld. A new edition. . . . To which is added a large Glossary,
explaining the difficult words, which may serve for a dictionary to the old Scottish
language. Edinburgh : Printed by Mr. Andrew Symson and Mr. Robert Freebairn,
and sold at their shops. 1710. The glossary gives, " Biggit, built ; Big, to build.
Anglo-Saxon Byggan, cedificare." For other references to "the Douglas Glossary,"
see Vol. XXIX. pp. 454, 455 n.]
* [Fortunes of Nigel, ch. ii., and Guy Mannering, ch. xlviii. : Ruskin quotes from
memory. Scott wrote, " Odd, I trust they'll no coup us."]
* [See the note on p. 321.]
5 [The Monastery, chaps, xxix., xxxvii.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— I 301
Crowe. Courageous, softened with a sense of comfort.
Ilka. Again a word with azure distance, including the
whole sense of " each " and " every." The reader must
carefully and reverently distinguish these comprehensive
words, which gather two or more perfectly understood
meanings into one chord of meaning, and are harmonies
more than words, from the above-noted blunders between
two half-hit meanings, struck as a bad piano-player strikes
the edge of another note. In English we have fewer of
these combined thoughts ; so that Shakespeare rather plays
with the distinct lights of his words, than melts them into
one. So again Bishop Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke,
the word " rose," differently, according to his purpose ; if
as the chief or governing ruler of flowers, " rois," but if
only in her own beauty, rose.1
Christian-like. The sense of the decency and order
proper to Christianity is stronger in Scotland than in any
other country, and the word " Christian " more distinctly
opposed to " beast." Hence the back-handed cut at the
English for their over-pious care of dogs.
34. I am a little surprised myself at the length to which
this examination of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-
rate work has carried us, but here I must end for this time,
trusting, if the Editor of the Nineteenth Century permit
me, yet to trespass, perhaps more than once, on his readers'
patience ; but, at all events, to examine in a following paper
the technical characteristics of Scott's own style, both in
volume, Old Glasgow, z pp. 120, 140, etc. The Protestantism of Glasgow,
since throwing that powder of saints into her brook Kidron,3 has presented
it with other pious offerings ; and my friend goes on to say that the
brook, once famed for the purity of its waters (much used for bleaching),
" has for nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of loathsomeness.
It is now bricked over, and a carriage-way made on the top of it ; under-
neath the foul mess still passes through the heart of the city, till it falls
into the Clyde close to the harbour."
1 [Compare Pleasures of England, § 67 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 463).]
1 [Old Glasgow: the Place and the People, from the Roman Occupation to the
Eighteenth Century, 1880.]
1 [2 Kings xxiii. 12.]
802 ON THE OLD ROAD
prose and verse, together with Byron's, as opposed to our
fashionably recent dialects and rhythms ; the essential virtues
of language, in both the masters of the old school, hinging
ultimately, little as it might be thought, on certain unalter-
able views of theirs concerning the code called " of the Ten
Commandments,"1 wholly at variance with the dogmas of
automatic morality which, summed again by the witches'
line, " Fair is foul, and foul is fair," hover through the fog
and filthy air2 of our prosperous England.
» [See below, § 64 (p. 334).]
2 [Macbeth, Act i. sc. 1.]
[SCOTT, RYME, WORDSWORTH]
35. " He hated greetings in the market-place, and there were
generally loiterers in the streets to persecute him either
about the events of the day, or about some petty pieces
of business."
These lines, which the reader will find near the begin-
ning of the sixteenth chapter of the first volume of The
Antiquary, contain two indications of the old man's char-
acter, which, receiving the ideal of him as a portrait of
Scott himself,1 are of extreme interest to me. They mean
essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind
to be called of men, Rabbi,2 in mere hearing of the mob ;
and especially that they hated to be drawn back out of
their far-away thoughts, or forward out of their long-ago
thoughts, by any manner of "daily" news, whether printed
or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in
both men (for I must always speak of Scott's creations
as if they were as real as himself,) than any of their super-
ficial vanities, or passing enthusiasms, I have to speak more
at another time.3 I quote the passage just now, because
there was one piece of the daily news of the year 1815
which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct
the labour of the latter part of his life ; nor is there any
piece of history in this whole nineteenth century quite
so pregnant with various instruction as the study of the
* Nineteenth Century, August 1880.
1 [For Scott's portraits of himself in the Waverleys, see also Vol. XXVII.
p. 631 n. ; aud above, § 32 (p. 298). It may be noted that in the Introduction to
The Antiquary Scott repudiates the idea that Oldbuck was a portrait of George
Constable.]
2 [Matthew xxiii. 7.]
3 [These points are not expressly reverted to.]
303
304 ON THE OLD ROAD
reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in their opposite
views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo.1
36. But I quote it for another reason also. The prin-
cipal greeting which Mr. Oldbuck on this occasion receives
in the market-place, being compared with the speech of
Andrew Fairservice, examined in my first paper, will fur-
nish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in
the present one : —
" ' Mr. Oldbuck/ said the town-clerk (a more important person, who
came in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), ' the provost,
understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it
without seeing him ; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water
frae the Fairwell spring through a part o' your lands/
" ' What the deuce ! — have they nobody's land but mine to cut and
carve on? — I won't consent, tell them/
" ' And the provost,' said the clerk, going on, without noticing the
rebuff, * and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld
stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to hae/
"'Eh? — what?— Oho! that's another story— Well, well, I'll call upon
the provost, and we'll talk about it/
" ' But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye
want the stanes ; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes
might be put with advantage on the front of the new council-house — that
is, the twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robbin and
Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd
Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says,
and just in the style of modern Gothic/
" ' Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation ! ' exclaimed the
Antiquary, — 'a monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian
porch, and a Madonna on the top of it! — 0 crimini/ — Well, tell the
provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the M'ater-
course. — It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day/
" They parted mutually satisfied ; but the wily clerk had most reason
to exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to
remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public
road) and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh, through the
estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
the pressure of the moment."
1 [Scott's view of the glories of the battle was expressed in his enthusiastic poem
The Field of Waterloo, which was published in October 1815, the profits of the first
edition being his contribution to the fund raised for the relief of the widows and
children of soldiers slain in the battle. Byron's view sufficiently appears in his
criticism of Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode (see below, p. 326) ; but see also Childe
Harold, canto iii. stanza 19 ("Is Earth more free?"), the Ode Jrom the French (1816),
and Don Juan, canto viii. stanzas 48-50.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 305
87. In this single page of Scott, will the reader please
note the kind of prophetic instinct with which the great
men of every age mark and forecast its destinies ? l The
water from the Fairwell is the future Thirlmere carried to
Manchester; the "auld stanes"* at Donagild's Chapel,
removed as a nuisance, foretell the necessary view taken by
modern cockneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things
that remind them of the noble dead, of their fathers' fame,
or of their own duty ; and the public road becomes their
idol, instead of the saint's shrine. Finally, the roguery of
the entire transaction — the mean man seeing the weakness
of the honourable, and " besting " him — in modern slang, in
the manner and at the pace of modern trade — " on the
pressure of the moment."
* The following fragments out of the letters in ray own possession,2
written by Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outer decorations of
the house were in process of completion, will show how accurately Scott
had pictured himself in Monkbarns.
" ABBOTSFORD : April 21, 1817.
" DEAR SIR, — Nothing can be more obliging than your attention to the
old stones. You have been as true as the sundial itself." [The sundial
had just been erected.] " Of the two I would prefer the larger one, as
it is to be in front of a parapet quite in the old taste. But in case of
accidents it will be safest in your custody till I come to town again on
the 12th of May. Your former favours (which were weighty as acceptable)
have come safely out here, and will be disposed of with great effect."
" ABBOTSFORD : July 30th.
" I fancy the Tolbooth still keeps its feet, but, as it must soon descend,
I hope you will remember me. I have an important use for the niche
above the door ; and though many a man has got a niche in the Tolbooth
by building, I believe I am the first that ever got a niche out of it
on such an occasion. For which I have to thank your kindness, and to
remain very much your obliged humble servant,
"WALTER SCOTT."
"August 16.
" MY DEAR SIR, — I trouble you with this [sic] few lines to thank you
for the very accurate drawings and measurements of the Tolbooth door,
and for your kind promise to attend to my interest and that of Abbotsford
1 [Compare below, p. 329.]
2 [For a reference to the handwriting in Scott's letters, see Fors Clavigera,
Letter 94 (Vol. XXIX. p. 487 «•)•]
306 ON THE OLD ROAD
But neither are these things what I have at present
quoted the passage for.
I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful
and various history is gathered in the fact recorded for us
in this piece of entirely fair fiction, that in the Scottish
borough of Fairport (Montrose, really), in the year 17 — of
Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and teachers
provided for its children by enlightened Scottish Protes-
tantism, of their fathers' history, and the origin of their
religion, had resulted in this substance and sum ; — that the
statues of two crusading knights had become, to their chil-
dren, Robin and Bobbin ; and the statue of the Madonna,
Ailie Dailie.
A marvellous piece of history, truly : and far too com-
prehensive for general comment here. Only one small piece
of it I must carry forward the readers' thoughts upon.
in the matter of the Thistle and Fleur de Lis. Most of our scutcheons
are now mounted, and look very well, as the house is something after
the model of an old hall (not a castle), where such things are well in
character." [Alas — Sir Walter, Sir Walter !] " I intend the old lion to
predominate over a well which the children have christened the Fountain
of the Lions. His present den, however, continues to be the hall at
Castle Street."
"September 5.
"DEAR SIR, — I am greatly obliged to you for securing the stone. I
am not sure that I will put up the gate quite in the old form, but I
woilld like to secure the means of doing so. The ornamental stones are
now put up, and have a very happy effect. If you will have the kindness
to let me know when the Tolbooth door comes down, I will send in my
carts for the stones ; I have an admirable situation for it. I suppose the
door itself" [he means the wooden one] "will be kept for the new jail;
if not, and not otherwise wanted, I would esteem it curious to possess it.
Certainly I hope so many sore hearts will not pass through the celebrated
door when in my possession as heretofore."
" September 8.
" I should esteem it very fortunate if I could have the door also,
though I suppose it is modern, having been burned down at the time of
Porteous-mob.
" I am very much obliged to the gentlemen who thought these re-
mains of the Heart of Midlothian are not ill bestowed on their intended
possessor."
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 307
38. The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented
typically in another part of this errorless book by Mr.
Blattergowl,1) are not, whatever else they may have to
answer for, answerable for these names. The names are
of the children's own choosing and bestowing, but not
of the children's own inventing. " Robin " is a classically
endearing cognomen, recording the errant heroism of old
days — the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy. " Bobbin "
is a poetical and symmetrical fulfilment and adornment of
the original phrase. " Ailie " is the last echo of " Ave,"
changed into the softest Scottish Christian name familiar
to the children, itself the beautiful feminine form of royal
" Louis " ; the " Dailie " again symmetrically added for kinder
and more musical endearment. The last vestiges, you see,
of honour for the heroism and religion of their ancestors,
lingering on the lips of babes and sucklings.2
But what is the meaning of this necessity the chil-
dren find themselves under of completing the nomenclature
rhythmically and rhymingly ? Note first the difference care-
fully, and the attainment of both qualities by the couplets
in question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quantitative
measure of the words, in which Robin, both in weight and
time, balances Bobbin; and Dailie holds level scale with
Ailie. But rhyme is the added correspondence of sound ;
unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn, by the
Greek Orpheus, but absolutely essential to, and, as special
virtue, becoming titular of, the Scottish Thomas.8
39. The " Ryme," * you may at first fancy, is the
especially childish part of the work. Not so. It is the
especially chivalric and Christian part of it. It characterizes
* Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader's better conveni-
ence, I shall continue to spell " Ryme " without our wrongly added h.
1 [See below, §§ 55, 113, 119; and compare Vol. XXXII. p. 117.]
2 [Psalms viii. 2.]
3 [For "Thomas the Rhymer," see below, §§ 41, 47 (pp. 310, 315); and com-
pare Fors Clamgera, Letter 94 (Vol. XXIX. p. 485), and the other passage there
noted.]
xxxiv. u
308 ON THE OLD ROAD
the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher thing than a
Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.
Think of it ; for this again is wonderful ! That these
children of Montrose should have an element of music
in their souls which Homer had not, — which a melos of
David the Prophet and King had not, — which Orpheus
and Amphion had not, — which Apollo's unrymed oracles
became mute at the sound of.1
A strange new equity this, — melodious justice and
judgment, as it were, — in all words spoken solemnly and
ritualistically by Christian human creatures ; — Robin and
Bobbin — by the Crusader's tomb, up to " Dies irse, dies
ilia," at judgment of the crusading soul.
You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian
minstrels, from first to last ; that they are more musical,
because more joyful, than any others on earth : ethereal
minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the kindred points
of heaven and home ; 2 their joy essentially the sky-lark's,
in light, in purity ; but, with their human eyes, looking for
the glorious appearing3 of something in the sky, which the
bird cannot.
This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza
rima — Horatian Latin into Proven9al troubadour's melody ;
not, because less artful, less wise.
40. Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming
just before Chaucer's time — near enough to our own French
to be intelligible to us yet : —
"O quant tres-glorieuse vie,
Quant cil qui tout peut et maistrie,
Veult esprouver pour n6cessaire,
Ne pour quant il ne blasraa mie
La vie de Marthe sa mie:
Mais il lui donna exemplaire
D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire
A Dieu ; et plut de bien a faire :
1 [See Milton's Hymn on the Morning of Chrigfs Nativity, xix.]
2 [Wordsworth : To a Sky-lark.]
3 [Titus ii. 13.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 309
Pour se conclut-il que Marie
Qui estoit a ses piedz sans braire,
Et pensoit d'entendre et de taire,
Estleut la plus saine partie.
La raeilleur partie esleut-elle
Et la plus saine et la plus belle,
Qui ja ne luy sera ostee ;
Car par verite se fut celle
Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,
D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymee ;
Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamee,
Et si ardamment enflamee,
Que tous-jours ardoit 1'estincelle ;
Par quoi elle fut visitee
Et de Dieu premier confortee ;
Car charite est trop ysnelle." 1
41. The only law of metre, observed in this song, is
that each line shall be octosyllabic :
Qui fut | tousjours | fresche et | nouvelle,
D'autre | ment vi | vret de | bien (ben) plaire.
Et pen | soit den | tendret | de taire.
But the reader must note that words which were two-
syllabled in Latin mostly remain yet so in the French.
La vi | e de [ Marthe | sa raie,
although mie, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of
arnica through amie, remains monosyllabic. But vie elides
its e before a vowel :
Car Mar- | the me | nait vie | active
Et Ma- | ri-e | contemp | lative;
and custom endures many exceptions. Thus Marie may be
three-syllabled as above, or answer to mie as a dissyllable ;
but merge is always, I think, dissyllabic, vier-ge, with even
stronger accent on the -ge, for the Latin -go.
Then, secondly, of quantity, there is scarcely any fixed
1 ["Le Testament de Jean de Meung," lines 977-1018, appended to Le Roman
de la AW-.]
310 ON THE OLD ROAD
law. The metres may be timed as the minstrel chooses—
fast or slow — and the iambic current checked in reverted
eddy, as the words chance to come.
But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming,
no matter how simply got, so only that the words jingle
and tingle together with due art of interlacing and answer-
ing in different parts of the stanza, correspondent to the
involutions of tracery and illumination. The whole twelve-
line stanza is thus constructed with two rymes only, six of
each, thus arranged :
AABAABBBABBA
dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in
ascent and descent, or descant more properly; and doubt-
less with correspondent phases in the voice-given, and duly
accompanying, or following, music ; Thomas the Rymer's
own precept, that "tong is chefe in mynstrelsye," being
always kept faithfully in mind.*
42. Here then you have a sufficient example of the
pure chant of the Christian ages ; which is always at heart
joyful, and divides itself into the four great forms ; Song
of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, and Song of
Battle ; praise, however, being the keynote of passion
through all the four forms ; according to the first law
which I have already given in the Laws of Fesole ; "all
great Art is Praise,"1 of which the contrary is also true,
all foul or miscreant Art is accusation, 8iapo\ri : " She gave
me of the tree and I did eat"2 being an entirely museless
expression on Adam's part, the briefly essential contrary of
Love- song.
With these four perfect forms of Christian chant, of
* L. ii. 278.3
1 [The title of Chapter i. in that book : Vol. XV. p. 351. Compare Art of
England, § 58 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 305).]
2 [Genesis iii. 12.]
3 [Quoted from the Lincoln MS. of True Thomas and the Queen of Etfland.~\
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 311
which we may take for pure examples the "Te Deum,"
the " Te Lucis Ante," l the " Amor che nella mente," * and
the " Chant de Roland," 2 are mingled songs of mourning,
of Pagan origin (whether Greek or Danish), holding grasp
still of the races that have once learned them, in times of
suffering and sorrow; and songs of Christian humiliation or
grief, regarding chiefly the sufferings of Christ, or the con-
ditions of our own sin : while through the entire system
of these musical complaints are interwoven moralities, in-
structions, and related histories, in illustration of both, pass-
ing into Epic and Romantic verse, which gradually, as the
forms and learnings of society increase, becomes less joyful,
and more didactic, or satiric, until the last echoes *of Chris-
tian joy and melody vanish in the "Vanity of Human
Wishes."3
43. And here I must pause for a minute or two to
separate the different branches of our inquiry clearly from
one another. For one thing, the reader must please put
for the present out of his head all thought of the pro-
gress of "civilization" — that is to say, broadly, of the sub-
stitution of wigs for hair, gas for candles, and steam for
legs. This is an entirely distinct matter from the phases of
policy and religion. It has nothing to do with the British
* "Che nella mente mia ragiona." Love — you observe, the highest
Reasonableness, instead of French ivresse,* or even Shakespearian "mere
folly " ; 5 and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom in this third song of the
Convito, to be compared with the Revolutionary Goddess of Reason ; remem-
bering of the whole poem chiefly the line : —
"(Jostei peuso chi niosse 1'universo."
(See Lyell's Canzoniere, p. 104/5)
1 [The hymn "Te lucis ante terminum," sung at Compline, the Hour follow-
ing Vespers.]
* [Compare, on this "ancient and glorious French song," Vol. XXIII. p. 116 n.]
3 [For another reference to Johnson's imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal,
see below, p. 314.]
4 [See above, § 22, p. 286.]
'" [As You Like It, Act ii. sc. 7 (song).]
' [The Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri, Italian and English, translated by Charles
Lyell, 1835. For the song from the Convito here quoted by Ruskiu, see p. 98
of Lyell.]
312 ON THE OLD ROAD
Constitution, or the French Revolution, or the unification
of Italy. There are, indeed, certain subtle relations between
the state of mind, for instance, in Venice, which makes her
prefer a steamer to a gondola, and that which makes her
prefer a gazetteer to a duke;1 but these relations are not
at all to be dealt with until we solemnly understand that
whether men shall be Christians and poets, or infidels and
dunces, does not depend on the way they cut their hair,
tie their breeches, or light their fires. Dr. Johnson might
have worn his wig in fulness conforming to his dignity,
without therefore coming to the conclusion that human
wishes were vain ; nor is Queen Antoinette's civilized hair-
powder, as opposed to Queen Bertha's savagely loose hair,
the cause of Antoinette's laying her head at last in scaffold
dust, but Bertha in a pilgrim-haunted tomb.2
44. Again, I have just now used the words "poet" and
" dunce," meaning the degree of each quality possible to
average human nature. Men are eternally divided into the
two classes of poet (believer, maker, and praiser) and dunce
(or unbeliever, unmaker, and dispraiser). And in process of
ages they have the power of making faithful and forma-
tive creatures of themselves, or unfaithful and cfe-formative.
And this distinction between the creatures who, blessing,
are blessed, and evermore benedicti, and the creatures who,
cursing, are cursed, and evermore maledicti, is one going
through all humanity; antediluvian in Cain and Abel,
diluvian in Ham and Shem. And the question for the
public of any given period is not whether they are a con-
stitutional or unconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are
a benignant or malignant vulgus.3 So also, whether it is
1 [See Ruskin's references in Fors Clavigera, Letter 42, to the Rinnovamento
(" Gazette of the people of Venice "), and his reflections there upon Past and Present
in Venice (Vol. XXVIII. pp. 93 seq.).]
* [Ruskin may be thinking either of the English Bertha (Pleasures of England,
§ 23) or of the Swiss (ibid., § 101) : see Vol. XXXIII. pp. 433, 493. The
former, the wife of Ethelhert, was, according to tradition, buried in a tomb in
St. Martin's Church, Canterbury. The tomb of the Swiss Bertha is shown in the
church at Payerne : see Preeterita, iii. § 40.] -
3 [For the reference to Horace, see Vol. XVII. p. 228.]
^
^
c/5
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 313
indeed the gods who have given any gentleman the grace
to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether it is
indeed the rabble, or he, who are the malignant persons.
45. But yet again. This difference between the persons
to whom Heaven, according to Orpheus, has granted "the
hour of delight," * and those whom it has condemned to
the hour of detestableness, being, as I have just said, of
all times and nations, — it is an interior and more delicate
difference which we are examining in the gift of Christian^
as distinguished from unchristian, song. Orpheus, Pindar,
and Horace are indeed distinct from the prosaic rabble, as
the bird from the snake ; but between Orpheus and Pales-
trina, Horace and Sidney, there is another division, and a
new power of music and song given to the humanity which
has hope of the Resurrection.
This is the root of all life and all Tightness in Christian
harmony, whether of word or instrument ; and so literally,
that in precise manner as this hope disappears, the power of
song is taken away, and taken away utterly. When the
Christian falls back out of the bright hope of the Resur-
rection, even the Orpheus song is forbidden him.1 Not to
have known the hope is blameless : one may sing, unknow-
ing, as the swan, or Philomela. But to have known and
fall away from it, and to declare that the human wishes,
which are summed in that one — "Thy kingdom come"2 —
are vain ! The Fates ordain there shall be no singing after
that denial.
46. For observe this, and earnestly. The old Orphic
song, with its dim hope of yet once more Eurydice, —
the Philomela song — granted after the cruel silence, — the
* &pav r»)s rectos — Plato, Laws, ii., Steph. 669. "Hour" having here
nearly the power of " Fate " with added sense of being a daughter of
Themis.
1 [Compare Bible of Amiens, ch. iii. § 25, and Art of England, § 15 (Vol. XXXIII.
pp. 101, 276).]
2 [See, however, for a less literal aspect of these words, the seventh of the Letters
on the Lord's Prayer (above, p. 201).]
314 ON THE OLD ROAD
Halcyon song — with its fifteen days of peace,1 were all sad,
or joyful only in some vague vision of conquest over
death. But the Johnsonian vanity of wishes is on the
whole satisfactory to Johnson — accepted with gentlemanly
resignation by Pope,2 — triumphantly and with bray of penny
trumpets and blowing of steam-whistles, proclaimed for the
glorious discovery of the civilized ages, by Mrs. Barbauld,
Miss Edgeworth, Adam Smith, and Co. There is no
God, but have we not invented gunpowder? — who wants
a God, with that in his pocket ? * There is no Resurrec-
tion, neither angel nor spirit;3 but have we not paper and
pens, and cannot every blockhead print his opinions, and the
Day of Judgment become Republican, with everybody for a
judge, and the flat of the universe for the throne ? There
is no law, but only gravitation and congelation, and we are
stuck together in an everlasting hail, and melted together
in everlasting mud, and great was the day in which our
worships were born. And there is no Gospel, but only,
* "Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of modern times,
and what has given such a superiority to civilized nations over barbarous " !
(Evenings at Home — fifth evening.4) No man can owe more than I both
to Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth ; and I only wish that in the sub-
stance of what they wisely said, they had been more listened to. Never-
theless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respecting manufacture
and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, are concentrated in Evenings
at Home and Harry and Lucy5 — being all the while themselves works of
real genius, and prophetic of things that have yet to be learned and ful-
filled. See for instance the paper, "Things by their Right Names," follow-
ing the one from which I have just quoted ("The Ship"), and closing the
first volume of the old edition of the Evenings.6
1 [For other reference to the legend of Orpheus singing " such notes as warbled
to the string drew iron tears from Pluto's cheek " and gained promise of his lost
Eurydice, see Cestus of Aglaia, § 13 (Vol. XIX. p. 66) ; to the legend of Philomela,
betrayed by Tereus and bereft of her tongue, and afterwards transformed into the
nightingale, there is a slight and passing reference in Vol. XXV. p. 175 ; and for
the song of the Halcyon, see Eagle * Ne«t, Vol. XXII. pp. 250 «eq.]
2 [For another reference to Pope in a similar sense, see Aratra Pentelici, § 50
(Vol. XX. p. 233).]
* [Acts xxiii. 8.]
* [See vol. i. p. 141 in the edition of 1792.]
* [For another reference to Miss Edgeworth in the same sense, see Vol. XXIX.
p. 395 n. For Mrs. Barbauld's Evenings at Home, see Vol. XXVI. p. 114.]
* [Vol. i. pp. 160-152 : the point of the paper is that war is murder.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 315
whatever we've got, to get more, and, wherever we are, to
go somewhere else. And are not these discoveries, to be
sung of, and drummed of, and fiddled of, and generally
made melodiously indubitable in the eighteenth-century
song of praise?
47. The Fates will not have it so. No word of song
is possible, in that century, to mortal lips. Only polished
versification, sententious pentameter and hexameter, until,
having turned out its toes long enough without dancing,
and pattered with its lips long enough without piping,
suddenly Astrsea returns to the earth,1 and a Day of
Judgment of a sort, and there bursts out a song at last
again, a most curtly melodious triplet of Amphisbaenic
ryme. " fa z'ra." 2
Amphisbgenic,3 fanged in each ryme with fire, and obey-
ing Ercildoune's precept, "Tong is chefe of mynstrelsye," 4
to the syllable. — Don Giovanni's hitherto fondly chanted
"Andiam, andiam," become suddenly impersonal and pro-
phetic : IT shall go, and you also. A cry — before it is
a song, then song and accompaniment together — perfectly
done ; and the march " towards the field of Mars. The
two hundred and fifty thousand — they to the sound of
stringed music — preceded by young girls with tricolour
streamers, they have shouldered soldier-wise their shovels
and picks, and with one throat are singing fa ira."*
* Carlyle, French Revolution (Chapman, 1 869), vol. ii. p. 70 ; conf. p. 25,
and the fa ira at Arras, vol. iii. p. 276.5
1 [See Virgil, Eclogues, iv. 6 (referred to also in Vol. XXXIII. p. 120) : "Jam
redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna" — Virgo being Astraea, the goddess of
Justice; hence Dryden's Astrcea Redux of another day of judgment "of a sort" —
the return of King Charles.]
* [See further, below, § 60 ; and compare Bible of Amiens, ch. iv. § 7
(Vol. XXXIII. p. 129).]
* [For this word, see also Fors, Letter 36 (Vol. XXVII. p. 657) : " Such double-
ends as may be discoverable in Amphisbsenas " : the fabled serpents, headed at
each end.]
1 [See above, p. 310.]
1 [The references in vol. ii. are to Book i. ch. xi. (somewhat altered) ; Book i.
ch. vi. ; and in vol. iii., Book v. ch. iii.]
316 ON THE OLD ROAD
Through all the springtime of 1790, from Brittany to
Burgundy, on most plains of France, under most city walls,
there march and constitutionally wheel to the Qa-ira-ing
mood of fife and drum — our clear glancing phalanxes; — the
song of the two hundred and fifty thousand, virgin-led, is
in the long light of July.
48. Nevertheless, another song is yet needed, for phalanx,
and for maid. For, two springs and summers having gone
— amphisbaenic, — on the 28th of August, 1792,
"Dumouriez rode from the camp of Maulde, eastwards to Sedan. . . .
"And Longwi has fallen basely, and Brunswick and the Prussian king
will beleaguer Verdun, and Clairfait and the Austrians press deeper in
over the northern marches, Cimmerian Europe behind. And on that same
night Dumouriez assembles council of war at his lodgings in Sedan.
Prussians here, Austrians there, triumphant both. With broad highway to
Paris and little hindrance — rve scattered, helpless here and there — what to
advise ? " *
The generals advise retreating, and retreating, till Paris
be sacked at the latest day possible. Dumouriez, silent,
dismisses them, — keeps only, with a sign, Thouvenot. Silent
thus, when needful, yet having voice, it appears, of what
musicians call tenor quality, of a rare kind. Rubini-esque,
even, but scarcely producible to fastidious ears at opera.
The seizure of the forest of Argonne follows — the cannonade
of Valmy. The Prussians do not march on Paris this time,
the autumnal hours of fate pass on— pa ira — and on the
6th of November, Dumouriez meets the Austrians also : —
"Dumouriez wide-winged, they wide-winged — at and around Jemappes,
its green heights fringed and maned with red fire. And Dumouriez is
swept back on this wing and swept back on that, and is like to be swept
back utterly, when he rushes up in person, speaks a prompt word or two,
and then, with clear tenor-pipe, uplifts the hymn of the Marseillaise, ten
thousand tenor or bass pipes joining, or say some forty thousand in all,
for every heart leaps up at the sound; and so, with rhythmic march
melody, they rally, they advance, they rush death-defying, and like the
fire whirlwind sweep all manner of Austrians from the scene of action."
* Carlyle, French Revolution, iii. 26. l
1 [Book i. (of vol. iii.) ch. iii. (slightly compressed).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 317
Thus, through the lips of Dumouriez, sings Tyrtaeus
Rouget de Lisle,1* "Aux armes — marchons." Iambic mea-
sure with a witness ! in what wide strophe here beginning
— in what unthought-of antistrophe returning to that council
chamber in Sedan !
49. While these two great songs were thus being com-
posed, and sung, and danced to in cometary cycle, by
the French nation, here in our less giddy island there
rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and of idleness
in England, three troubadours of quite different temper.
Different also themselves, but not opponent; forming a
perfect chord, and adverse all the three of them alike to
the French musicians, in this main point — that while the
Qa ira and Marseillaise were essentially songs of blame and
wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, always songs of
praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys.
On the contrary, all the three are alike moved by a singu-
lar antipathy to the priests, and are pointed at with fear
and indignation by the pietists, of their day ; — not without
latent cause. For they are all of them, with the most
loving service, servants of that world which the Puritan
and monk alike despised; and, in the triple chord of their
song, could not but appear to the religious persons around
them as respectively and specifically the praisers — Scott of
the world, Burns of the flesh, and Byron of the devil.
To contend with this carnal orchestra, the religious
world, having long ago rejected its Catholic Psalms as anti-
quated and unscientific, and finding its Puritan melodies
sunk into faint jar and t wangle from their native trumpet-
tone, had nothing to oppose but the innocent, rather than
religious, verses of the school recognized as that of the
English Lakes ; very creditable to them ; domestic at once
and refined ; observing the errors of the world outside of
the Lakes with a pitying and tender indignation, and
arriving in lacustrine seclusion at many valuable principles
* Carlyle, French Revolution, iiL 106 [Book ii. ch. iv.], the last sentence
altered in a word or two.
318 ON THE OLD ROAD
of philosophy, as pure as the tarns of their mountains, and
of corresponding depth.*
50. I have lately seen, and with extreme pleasure, Mr.
Matthew Arnold's arrangement of Wordsworth's poems ; l
and read with sincere interest his high estimate of them.
But a great poet's work never needs arrangement by other
hands; and though it is very proper that Silver How
should clearly understand and brightly praise its fraternal
Rydal Mount,2 we must not forget that, over yonder, are
the Andes, all the while.
Wordsworth's rank and scale among poets were deter-
mined by himself, in a single exclamation:
" What was the great Parnassus' self to thee,
Mount Skidclaw ? " 3
Answer his question faithfully, and you have the rela-
tion between the great masters of the Muse's teaching and
the pleasant fingerer of his pastoral flute among the reeds
of Rydal.
Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with
considerably less shrewdness than most border Englishmen
or Scotsmen inherit ; and no sense of humour : but gifted
(in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural beauty, and
a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as far
as they reach, medicinal to the fever of the restless and
corrupted life around him. Water to parched lips may
be better than Samian wine,4 but do not let us therefore
* I have been greatly disappointed, in taking soundings of our most
majestic mountain pools, to find them, in no case, verge on the unfathom-
able.
1 [Poems of Wordsworth Chosen and Edited (with a Preface) by Matthew Arnold,
"Golden Treasury Series," 1879.]
2 [Dr. Arnold, it will be remembered, had built himself a house at Fox How
(for which Ruskin confuses Silver How), about half a mile from Rydal Mount.
Matthew Arnold, as a young man, saw much of Wordsworth at Rydal Mount (see
dough's Life and Letters, pp. 96-97).]
:[The poem of 1801 beginning, ft Pelion and Ossa nourish side by side."]
4 [Don Juan, iii. 86 ("The Isles of Greece").]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 319
confuse the qualities of wine and water. I much doubt
there being many inglorious Miltons in our country church-
yards ; l but I am very sure there are many Wordsworths
resting there, who were inferior to the renowned one only
in caring less to hear themselves talk.
With an honest and kindly heart, a stimulating egoism,
a wholesome contentment in modest circumstances, and
such sufficient ease, in that accepted state, as permitted
the passing of a good deal of time in wishing that daisies
could see the beauty of their own shadows,2 and other such
profitable mental exercises, Wordsworth has left us a series
of studies of the graceful and happy shepherd life of our
lake country, which to me personally, for one, are entirely
sweet and precious ; but they are only so as the mirror of
an existent reality in many ways more beautiful than its
picture.
51. But the other day I went for an afternoon's rest
into the cottage of one of our country people of old states-
man class ; cottage lying nearly midway between two village
churches, but more conveniently for downhill walk towards
one than the other. I found, as the good housewife made
tea for me, that nevertheless she went up the hill to church.
" Why do not you go to the nearer church ? " I asked.
" Don't you like the clergyman ? " " Oh no, sir," she
answered, " it isn't that ; but you know I couldn't leave
my mother." "Your mother! she is buried at H
then ? " " Yes, sir ; and you know I couldn't go to church
anywhere else."
That feelings such as these existed among the peasants,
not of Cumberland only, but of all the tender earth that
gives forth her fruit for the living, and receives her dead
to peace, might perhaps have been, to our great and end-
less comfort, discovered before now, if Wordsworth had
1 [For other quotations from Gray's Elegy, see Vol. XII. p. 378 ; Vol. XXII.
p. 393; Vol. XXIII. p. 28; and Vol. XXV.' pp. 73, 136, 250.]
2 [With the reference here to Wordsworth's piece ("So fair, so sweet, withal
so sensitive"), compare Vol. III. p. 177 n., and the passage from Preeterita there
noted.]
320 ON THE OLD ROAD
been content to tell us what he knew of his own villages
and people, not as the leader of a new and only correct
school of poetry, but simply as a country gentleman of
sense and feeling, fond of primroses,1 kind to the parish
children, and reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson
had tilled his lands : 2 and I am by no means sure that his
influence on the stronger minds of his time was anywise
hastened or extended by the spirit of tunefulness under
whose guidance he discovered that heaven rhymed to seven,
and Foy to boy.3
52. Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly
choir, I gladly and frankly acknowledge him ; and our
English literature enriched with a new and a singular
virtue in the aerial purity and healthful Tightness of his
quiet song ; — but aerial only, — not ethereal ; and lowly in
its privacy of light.
A measured mind, and calm ; innocent, unrepentant ;
helpful to sinless creatures and scatheless, such of the flock
as do not stray. Hopeful at least, if not faithful; content
with intimations of immortality4 such as may be in skip-
ping of lambs, and laughter of children — incurious to see in
the hands the print of the Nails.5
A gracious and constant mind ; as the herbage of its
native hills, fragrant and pure ; — yet, to the sweep and
the shadow, the stress and distress, of the greater souls
of men, as the tufted thyme to the laurel wilderness of
Tempe, — as the gleaming euphrasy to the dark branches
of Dodona.
(I am obliged to defer the main body of this paper to next month, —
revises penetrating all too late into my lacustrine seclusion ; 6 as chanced
also unluckily with the preceding paper, in which the reader will perhaps
1 [See Peter Bell, part i. stanza 12.]
2 [See the piece of 1804 (" To the Spade of a Friend ") beginning, " Spade !
with which Wilkinson hath tilled his land."]
3 [See "We are Seven" and "The Idiot Boy."]
4 [For Ruskin's numerous references to Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, see pp. 156, 325, 349, and General
Index.]
[John xx. 25.]
[See above, § 49.]
• fj
•B
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— II 321
kindly correct the consequent misprints,1 § 32, 1. 4, of "scarcely" to
"securely," and § 33 (Crans), "full," with comma, to "fall," without one;
noticing besides that Redgauntlet has been omitted in the list, § 27 ; and
that the reference to note* should not be at the word "imagination,"
§ 26, sixth line from end, but at the word "trade," § 27, 1. 4. My dear
old friend, Dr. John Brown, sends me, from Jamieson's Dictionary, the
following satisfactory end to one of my difficulties: — "Coup the crans."2
The language is borrowed from the "cran," or trivet on which small pots
are placed in cookery, which is sometimes turned with its feet uppermost
by an awkward assistant. Thus it signifies to be completely upset.)
1 [Corrected in On the Old Road, and in this edition. Raskin's references, here
altered, were to pages and lines in the Nineteenth Century.']
2 [See above, p. 300.]
[BYRON]
. " Parching summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal well ;
Rains, that make each brook a torrent,
Neither sully it, nor swell." l
53. So was it year by year, among the unthought-of hills.
Little Duddon and child Rotha 2 ran clear and glad ; and
laughed from ledge to pool, and opened from pool to mere,
translucent, through endless days of peace.
But eastward, between her orchard plains, Loire locked
her embracing dead in silent sands ; dark with blood rolled
Isar ; glacial-pale, Beresina-Lethe,3 by whose shore the weary
hearts forgot their people, and their father's house.4
Nor unsullied, Tiber; nor unswoln, Arno and Aufidus;6
* Nineteenth Century, September 1880.
1 [Wordsworth: Inscriptions, 1828 (iv. "Near the spring of the Hermitage").]
2 [See Wordsworth's To Rotha Quillinan, his granddaughter, named after the
stream that flows into Windermere from Grasmere and Rydal.]
3 [The allusions are here to — (1) The Noyades at Nantes on the Loire (1793) :
" Women and men are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands ; and flung in :
this they call Manage Republicain" (Carlyle's French Revolution, Book v. ch. iii.).
(2) The hattle of Hohenlinden (Bavaria), December 1800, in which the French under
Moreau defeated the Austrians with heavy loss. Ruskin doubtless was thinking of
Campbell's poem on the battle — quoted in Vol. XXXI. p. 360 —
" And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Isnr, rolling rapidly"
— the Isar (twenty miles distant) being by poetic licence brought in sight of the field.
The reference would, however, also fit the battle near Landshut on the Isar, where
the French under Davoust defeated the Austrians (April 1809). (3) The battle on
the banks of the Beresina (November 1812), in which the "grand army" of Napo-
leon was overwhelmed on the retreat from Moscow. Byron refers to the Retreat
in the first stanza of Mazeppa.]
4 [Psalms xlv. 10.]
6 [The allusions here seem less precise, referring generally to the bloodshed in
Napoleon's campaigns in Italy; Ruskin continuing his comparison by mentioning
two of its most famous rivers, and then the Aufidus (Ofanto), famous in classical
322
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 323
and Euroclydon high on Helle's wave ; l meantime, let our
happy piety glorify the garden rocks with snowdrop circlet,
and breathe the spirit of Paradise, where life is wise and
innocent.2
Maps many have we, now-a-days clear in display of
earth constituent, air current, and ocean tide. Shall we
ever engrave the map of meaner research, whose shadings
shall content themselves in the task of showing the depth,
or drought, — the calm, or trouble, of Human Compassion ?
54. For this is indeed all that is noble in the life of Man,
and the source of all that is noble in the speech of Man.3
Had it narrowed itself then, in those days, out of all the
world, into this peninsula between Cockermouth and Shap ?
Not altogether so ; but indeed the Vocal piety seemed
conclusively to have retired (or excursed ?) into that mossy
hermitage, above Little Langdale.4 The Unvocal piety,
with the uncomplaining sorrow, of Man, may have a some-
what wider range, for aught we know : but history dis-
regards those items ; and of firmly proclaimed and sweetly
canorous religion, there really seemed at that juncture none
to be reckoned upon, east of Ingleborough, or north of
CrifFel.5 Only under Furness Fells, or by Bolton Priory,
poetry for its swift and violent course (Horace, Odes, iii. 30, 10 ; iv. 9, 2 — quoted
by Ruskiu iu Vol. XVII. p. 547 ; Vol. XXVI. p. 555 ; and, above, p. 237). Next
he passes to the Dardanelles, where the British fleet (as the ally of Russia against
Napoleon) was threatening Constantinople.]
1 [See the beginning of canto ii. of Byron's Bride of Abydos (1813): "The
winds were high on Helle's wave," etc.]
2 [See Wordsworth's piece of 1803:—
"Who fancied what a pretty sight
This Rock would be if edged around
With living snow-drops ? circlet bright ! . . .
It is the Spirit of Paradise
That prompts such work, a Spirit strong,
That gives to all the self-same bent
When life is wise and innocent" —
often referred to by Ruskin : see Vol. XI. p. 153 ; Vol. XVII. p. 422 ; Vol. XXV.
p. xxxviii. ; and below, p. 487.]
3 [On this subject compare Fort Clavigera, Letter 92 (Vol. XXIX. p. 454), and
the other passages there noted.]
* [The reference is to Wordsworth's " Inscriptions supposed to be found in
and near a Hermit's Cell."]
6 [Ruskin takes th« mountain Criffel, because it is just south of Burns's home
(Dumfries), and Burns is one of the three minstrels iu the " carnal orchestra "
named above (§ 49).]
XXXIV. X
324 ON THE OLD ROAD
it seems we can still write Ecclesiastical Sonnets, stanzas
on the force of Prayer, Odes to Duty, and complimentary
addresses to the Deity upon His endurance for adoration.1
Far otherwise, over yonder, by Spezzia Bay, and Ravenna
Pineta, and in ravines of Hartz.2 There, the softest voices
speak the wildest words ; and Keats discourses of Endymion,
Shelley of Demogorgon, Goethe of Lucifer, and Burger of
the Resurrection of Death unto Death3 — while even Puritan
Scotland and Episcopal Anglia produce for us only these
three minstrels4 of doubtful tone, who show but small re-
spect for the " unco guid," put but limited faith in gifted
Gilfillan, and translate with unflinching frankness the Mor-
gante Maggiore.*
55. Dismal the aspect of the spiritual world, or at least
the sound of it, might well seem to the eyes and ears of
Saints (such as we had) of the period — dismal in angels'
* " It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for
verse ; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a
bigoted age to Churchmen, on the score of Religion — and so tell those
buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.
" I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I
must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with
the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six. Our old Cardinal is dead,
and the new one not appointed yet — but the masquing goes on the same."
(Letter to Murray, 355th in Moore, dated Ravenna, Feb. 7, 1820.) "A
dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife, except
your neighbour's."
1 [Here the references are to the Ecclesiastical Sonnets; The Force of Prayer, or
The Founding of Bolton Priory; the Ode to Duty; and the following passage in
the Excursion, Book iv. : —
"Thou, Thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed spirits,
Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves :
For adoration Thou endur'st."]
* [The references here must not be pressed too literally ; for Keats wrote
Endymion before leaving England for Italy ; Shelley's Prometheus Unbound was
written at Rome, and not, like several of his pieces, at Spezzia.]
3 [In the ballad of Lenore, whose dead lover takes horse and rides with her to
Death. See again, below, § 60 (p. 330) ; for another reference to the ballad, see
Vol. XXXHI. p. 334.]
* [The reference is to the three named in § 49 (p. 317) — to Burns and his Address
to the Unco Guid; Scott, for whose "gifted Gilfillan" (in Waverley, ch. xxxiv.),
see below, §§ 113, 119; and Byron (whose translation of the first canto of The
Morgante Maggiore di Messer Luigi Pulci was written at Ravenna in 1820).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 325
eyes also assuredly ! Yet is it possible that the dismalness
in angelic sight may be otherwise quartered, as it were,
from the way of mortal heraldry ; and that seen, and heard,
of angels,1 — again I say — hesitatingly — is it possible that
the goodness of the Unco Guid, and the gift of Gilfillan,
and the word of Mr. Blattergowl,2 may severally not have
been the goodness of God, the gift of God, nor the word
of God : but that in the much blotted and broken efforts
at goodness, and in the careless gift which they themselves
despised,* and in the sweet ryme and murmur of their
unpurposed words, the Spirit of the Lord had, indeed,
wandering, as in chaos days on lightless waters, gone forth
in the hearts and from the lips of those other three strange
prophets, even though they ate forbidden bread by the altar
of the poured-out ashes, and even though the wild beast of
the desert found them, and slew.8
This, at least, I know, that it had been well for England,
though all her other prophets, of the Press, the Parliament,
the Doctor's chair, and the Bishop's throne, had fallen silent ;
so only that she had been able to understand with her heart
here and there the simplest line of these, her despised.
56. I take one at mere chance :
" Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky ? " f
Well, I don't know ; Mr. Wordsworth certainly did, and
observed, with truth, that its clouds took a sober colouring
in consequence of his experiences.4 It is much if, indeed,
* See, quoted infra [p. 329], the mock, by Byron, of himself and all
other modern poets, Juan, canto iii. stanza 80, and compare canto xiv.
stanza 8. In reference of future quotations the first numeral will stand
always for canto ; the second for stanza ; the third, if necessary, for line.
f Island, ii. 16, where see context.
1 [1 Timothy iii. 10.]
2 fSee above, p. 307, and below, p. 382.]
3 [For the Bible words and allusions in this sentence, see Genesis i. 2 ; 1 Kings
xiii. 3, 9, 19, 24.]
4 [Again a reference to the Ode on Intimations of Immortality : —
" The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality."]
826 ON THE OLD ROAD
this sadness be unselfish, and our eyes Jiave kept loving
watch o'er Man's Mortality. I have found it difficult to
make any one now-a-days believe that such sobriety can
be ; and that Turner saw deeper crimson than others in the
clouds of Goldau.1 But that any should yet think the
clouds brightened by Man's /^mortality instead of dulled
by his death, — and, gazing on the sky, look for the day
when every eye must gaze also — for behold, He cometh with
clouds2 — this it is no more possible for Christian England
to apprehend, however exhorted by her gifted and guid.
57. " But Byron was not thinking of such things ! " —
He, the reprobate ! how should such as he think of Christ ?
Perhaps not wholly as you or I think of Him. Take,
at chance, another line or two, to try:
" Carnage (so Wordsworth tells you) is God's daughter ; *
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and
Just now, behaved as in the Holy Land."
* Juan, viii. 9 ', hut, by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth says
"instrument," — not "daughter."3 Your Lordship had better have said
" Infant " and taken the Woolwich authorities to witness : 4 only Infant
would not have rymed.
1 [See Modern Painters, vol. v. (VoL VII. p. 438).]
2 [Revelation i. 7.]
3 [Byron, however, was quite correct, Ruskiii being misled by Wordsworth's
subsequent revision (see below, p. 369). Byron's note on the passage in Don Juan
was as follows : —
:'.?;'.••'• 1,3 H> i!^\\ \ ,i,'J U
"(Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816, stanza xii. 20-23)
" But Thy* most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is Man — arrayed for mutual slaughter, —
Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter."
* " To wit, the Deity's : this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as ever
was found out by Garter King at Arms. What would have been said, had any
free-spoken people discovered such a lineage?"
Byron's criticism went home, and Wordsworth, in the latest edition of his poems,
revised by himself (1845), altered the lines thus : —
"But Man is Thy most awful instrument,
In working out a pure intent ;
Thou cloth'st the wicked in their dazzling mail,
And for Thy righteous purpose they prevail."
For another reference by Ruskin to the passage, see Bible of Amiens, ch. iv.
§ 33 n. (Vol. XXXIII. p. 146).]
* [For the "Woolwich Infant," see Fors Clavigera, Vol. XXVII. pp. 43, 140,
142, 266; Vol. XXVIII. p. 153.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 327
Blasphemy, cry you, good reader ? Are you sure you
understand it? The first line I gave you was easy Byron
— almost shallow Byron; these are of the man in his depth,
and you will not fathom them, like a tarn1 — nor in a hurry.
"Just now behaved as in the Holy Land." How did
Carnage behave in the Holy Land then ? You have all
been greatly questioning, of late, whether the sun, which
you find to be now going out, ever stood still.2 Did you
in any lagging minute, on those scientific occasions, chance
to reflect what he was bid stand still for ? or if not — will
you please look — and what also, going forth again as a
strong man to run his course,3 he saw, rejoicing ?
" Then Joshua passed from Makkedah unto Libnah — and fought against
Libnah. And the Lord delivered it and the king thereof into the hand
of Israel, and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls
that were therein."
And from Lachish to Eglon, and from Eglon to Kirjath-
Arba, and Sarah's grave in the Amorites' land,
" and Joshua smote all the country of the hills and of the south — and of the
vale and of the springs, and all their kings : he left none remaining, but
utterly destroyed all that breathed — as the Lord God of Israel commanded." 4
58. Thus, " it is written " : 6 though you perhaps do not
so often hear these texts preached from, as certain others
about taking away the sins of the world.6 I wonder how
the world would like to part with them ! hitherto it has
always preferred parting first with its life — and God has
taken it at its word. But Death is not His Begotten Son,7
e above, § 49 n. (p. 318).]
See Ruskiu's paper on " Miracles," above, p. 117-]
'Psalms xix. 5 : see both the Bible and the Prayer-book versions.]
Joshua x. 29, 30, 40.]
"Mattbew ii. 5, etc.]
'For instance, John i. 29 ; Hi. 17-]
The MS. here reads differently: —
" But Death is not His daughter, for all that ; not even the death of
the innocent in battle carnage — how much less that
' whose threatened sting
Turns Life to terror — even though in its sheath.'
A very notable piece of theology, you will please observe, and a sound ;
instead of the blasphemy you took it for.
"The real blasphemy is in picking out the texts of the Bible that
328 ON THE OLD ROAD
for all that ; nor is the death of the innocent in battle
carnage His "instrument for working out a pure intent,"
as Mr. Wordsworth puts it; but Man's instrument for
working out an impure one, as Byron would have you to
know. Theology perhaps less orthodox, but certainly more
reverent ; — neither is the Woolwich Infant a Child of God ;
neither does the iron-clad Thunderer utter thunders of
God — which facts if you had had the grace or sense to
learn from Byron, instead of accusing him of blasphemy, it
had been better at this day for you, and for many a savage
soul also, by Euxine shore, and in Zulu and Afghan lands.1
59. It was neither, however, for the theology, nor the
use, of these lines that I quoted them ; but to note this
main point of Byron's own character. He was the first
great Englishman who felt the cruelty of war, and, in its
cruelty, the shame. Its guilt had been known to George
Fox — its folly shown practically by Penn.2 But the com-
passion of the pious world had still for the most part been
shown only in keeping its stock of Barabbases unhanged if
possible : and, till Byron came, neither Kunersdorf, Eylau, nor
Waterloo,3 had taught the pity and the pride of men that
•'I'.l'i' .' '"
"The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore." *
* Juan, viii. 3; compare 14, and 63, with all its lovely context 61-68:
then 82, and afterwards slowly and with thorough attention, the Devil's
speech, beginning, "Yes, Sir, you forget" in scene 2 of "The Deformed
please yourself — and saying that God couldn't have meant the others, or
really, he is not the God you took Him for ; and you must evolve a
better one out of your moral consciousness, forsooth. fThou shalt not
make unto thee any graven Image. No ; — but perhaps an Lrngraven one,
always on aesthetic principles, maybe — an improvement on the Uuideal God.
It was not, however . . ."
On the picking out of Bible texts, see Vol. XXVII. p. 650.]
1 [To the South African and Afghan wars, Ruskin often refers iu a like sense:
see Vol. XXXITT. p. 224 n. But of the Crimean War he was at the time a sup-
porter: see the passage about "the skeleton of the Euxine" in Modern Painter*,
vol. iii. (Vol. V. pp. 410-417).]
* [For another reference to Fox, the Quaker, see Vol. XXVII. p. 573 ; to
Penn's settlement in Pennsylvania, Ruskin does not elsewhere' refer.]
3 (For another reference to the battle of Kunersdorf, see A Knight's Faith,
ch. xii. (Vol. XXXI. p. 479). For the slaughter at Eylau and Waterloo, see
"Modern Warfare" in Arrow* of the Chace, below, p. 523.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 829
Such pacific verse would not indeed have been acceptable
to the Edinburgh volunteers on Portobello sands.1 But
Byron can write a battle song too, when it is his cue to
fight. If you look at the introduction to the " Isles of
Greece," namely the 85th and 86th stanzas of the 3rd canto
of Don Juan, you will find — what will you not find, if
only you understand them ! " He " in the first line, remem-
ber, means the typical modern poet.
"Thus usually, when he was asked to sing,
He gave the different nations something national.
'Twas all the same to him — ' God save the King '
Or ' £a ira ' according to the fashion all ;
His muse made increment of anything
From the high lyric down to the low rational :
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar ?
In France, for instance, he would write a chanson ;
In England a six-canto quarto tale;
In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on
The last war — much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on
Would be old Goethe's — (see what says de Stael)
In Italy, he'd ape the ' Trecentisti ' ;
In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye."
60. Note first here, as we did in Scott,2 the concentrat-
ing and foretelling power. The " God save the Queen "
in England, fallen hollow now, as the " Qa ira " in France
— not a man in France knowing where either France or
"that" (whatever "that" may be) is going to; nor the
Queen of England daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest
Englishman to do a single thing he doesn't like;3 — nor
any salvation, either of Queen or Realm, being any more
possible to God, unless under the direction of the Royal
Transformed " : then Sardanapalus's, Act i. scene 2, beginning, " He is
gone, and on his finger bears my signet," and finally the " Vision of
Judgment," stanzas 3 to 5.
1 [Which Scott had joined on the enrolment of the Edinburgh Light Horse
in 1797 : see Lockhart, vol. i. ch. viii. (ed. 1).]
1 [See above, p. 305.]
s [Compare Letters on the Lord's Prayer (above, p. 220).]
330 ON THE OLD ROAD
Society: then, note the estimate of height and depth in
poetry, swept in an instant, "high lyric to low rational."
Pindar to Pope (knowing Pope's height, too, all the while,
no man better1); then, the poetic power of France — re-
sumed in a word — Bdranger; then the cut at Marmion,
entirely deserved, as we shall see,2 yet kindly given, for
everything he names in these two stanzas is the best of its
kind; then Romance in Spain on — the last war, (present
war not being to Spanish poetical taste) ; then, Goethe
the real heart of all Germany, and last, the aping of the
Trecentisti which has since consummated itself in Pre-
Raphaelitism 1 that also being the best thing Italy has done
through England, whether in Rossetti's " blessed damozels "
or Burne-Jones's "days of creation." Lastly comes the
mock at himself3 — the modern English Greek — (followed up
by the "degenerate into hands like mine" in the song
itself) ; and then — to amazement, forth he thunders in his
Achilles-voice. We have had one line of him in his clear-
ness— five of him in his depth — sixteen of him in his play.
Hear now but these, out of his whole heart: —
"What, — silent yet? and silent all?
Ah no, the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer, ' Let one living head,
But one, arise — we come — we come : '
— Tis but the living who are dumb."
Resurrection, this, you see like Burger's ; but not of death
unto death.4
61. " Sound like a distant torrent's fall." I said the
whole heart of Byron was in this passage. First its com-
passion, then its indignation, and the third element, not
yet examined, that love of the beauty of this world in
1 [See Byron's vindication of Pope in his " Reply to Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine" vol. iv. p. 489 in his Letters and Journals, ed. 1900 ; and for Raskin's
own appreciation of him, see Vol. XVI. p. 446.]
2 [See below, p. 347.1
8 [See above, p. 325.1
4 [See above, p. 324.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 331
which the three — unholy — children, of its Fiery Furnace1
were like to each other; but Byron the widest-hearted.
Scott and Burns love Scotland more than Nature itself:
for Burns the moon must rise over Cumnock Hills,2 — for
Scott, the Rymer's glen divide the Eildons ; 3 but, for Byron,
Loch-na-Gar with Ida, looks o'er Troy, and the soft mur-
murs of the Dee and the Bruar change into voices of the
dead on distant Marathon.4
Yet take the parallel from Scott, by a field of homelier
rest : —
" And silence aids — though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills ;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep ;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.
Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid our Lady's Chapel low,
Yet still beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid
Where erst his simple fathers prayed." 5
1 [Daniel Hi.]
2 [See the lines from Burns's Death and Doctor Hornbook, quoted in Vol. III.
p. 652.]
* [It was Michael Scott, the wizard, who "cleft Eildou Hills in three": see
Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto ii. stanza 13, and Scott's note there. Among the
Eildons is Scott's " The Rymer's Glen," the traditional scene of Thomas of
Ercildoune's interview with the Queen of Faerie : see Lockhart, i. 110, v. 236, and
vii. 286 (ed. 1869).]
* [Here Ruskin first quotes from Byrou himself: —
" He who first met the Highland's swelling blue
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in hie mind's embrace . . .
The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Loch na Garr with Ida looked o'er Troy."
(The Island, 1823, canto ii. stanza 12.) He then applies the sentiment of the lines
to the patho* which Byron puts into his descriptions of Marathon (Childe Harold,
canto ii. 88 seq., and Don Juan, canto iii. : " The mountains look on Marathon," etc.).
For Byron's love of Lachin y Gair (or Loch na Garr), see the poem in Hours of
Idleness, and compare VoL XXXIII. p. 382.]
1 [Introduction to canto ii. of Marmion.']
332 ON THE OLD ROAD
And last take the same note of sorrow — with Burns's
finger on the fall of it :
" Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens,
Ye hazly shaws and briery dens,
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens
Wi' toddlin' din,
Or foamin' strang wi' hasty stens
Frae lin to lin." l
62. As you read, one after another, these fragments of
chant by the great masters, does not a sense come upon
you of some element in their passion, no less than in their
sound, different, specifically, from that of " Parching summer
hath no warrant " ? 2 Is it more profane, think you — or more
tender — nay, perhaps, in the core of it, more true ?
For instance, when we are told that
" Wharfe, as he moved along,
To matins joined a mournful voice,"3
is this disposition of the river's mind to pensive psalmody
quite logically accounted for by the previous statement,
(itself by no means rhythmically dulcet,) that
"The boy is in the arms of Wharfe,
And strangled by a merciless force " ?
Or, when we are led into the improving reflection,
" How sweet were leisure, could it yield no more
Than 'mid this wave-washed churchyard to recline,
From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine ! " 4
— is the divinity of the extract assured to us by its being
made at leisure, and in a reclining attitude — as compared
with the meditations of otherwise active men, in an erect
one ? Or are we perchance, many of us, still erring
1 [Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson.]
2 |See above, § 53 (p. 322).]
3 [Wordsworth, The Force of Prayer: quoted also in Modern Painters, vol. iv.
(Vol. VI. p. 305).]
* [No. 31 of The River Duddon: a Series of Sonnets. In the second of the lines
here quoted, Wordsworth wrote "that," not "this."]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 333
somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity and Humanity,
poetical extraction, and moral position ?
63. On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing
for just a few words more of the school of Belial ?
Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjusti-
fiable one. Some very wicked people — mutineers, in fact
— have retired, misanthropically, into an unfrequented part
of the country, and there find themselves safe indeed, but
extremely thirsty. Whereupon Byron thus gives them to
drink : —
"A little stream came tumbling from the height
And straggling into ocean as it might.
Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray
And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray,
Close on the wild wide ocean, — yet as pure
And fresh as Innocence ; and more secure.
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,
While, far below, the vast and sullen swell
Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell." *
Now, I beg, with such authority as an old workman may
take concerning his trade, having also looked at a waterfall
or two in my time, and not unfrequently at a wave, to
assure the reader that here is entirely first-rate literary
work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, the thing is
itself good, and not only so, but unsurpassably good, the
closing line being probably the best concerning the sea yet
written by the race of the sea-kings.
64. But Lucifer himself could not have written it ;
neither any servant of Lucifer.1 I do not doubt but that
* Island, iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the " slings its high flakes,
shivered into sleet" of stanza 7.2
1 [In place of this brief sentence, the MS. has : —
" I tell you this, mind you, in my old name and faculty of ' author of
Modern Painters' — having looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and
not unfrequently at a wave, and got some things fairly well said, though
I say it, concerning both ; and on such standing, or reclination, do farther
certify you that neither I in my weakness, nor Byron in his might, could
either of us have said one right word of these lovely and mighty things,
but that we both of us had in our hearts reverence for the Laws of God
and pity for the creatures of earth."!
2 [For an additional passage, giving an analysis of these lines, see below, p. 396.]
334 ON THE OLD ROAD
most readers were surprised at my saying, in the close of
my first paper, that Byron's "style" depended in any wise
on his views respecting the Ten Commandments.1 That so
all-important a thing as " style " should depend in the least
upon so ridiculous a thing as moral sense : or that Allegra's
father, watching her drive by in Count G.'s coach and six,2
had any remnant of so ridiculous a thing to guide, — or
check, — his poetical passion, may alike seem more than
questionable to the liberal and chaste philosophy of the exist-
ing British public. But, first of all, putting the question of
who writes or speaks aside, do you, good reader, know good
" style " when you get it ? 3 Can you say, of half-a-dozen
given lines taken anywhere out of a novel, or poem, or play,
That is good, essentially, in style, or bad, essentially? and
can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, or bad ?
65. I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be
given with hesitation ; yet if you will give me a little
patience, and take some accurate pains, I can show you the
main tests of style in the space of a couple of pages.
I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in
manner highest, i.e. kingly, and heroic, style : the first
example in expression of anger, the second of love.
(1) "We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us,
His present, and your pains, we thank you for.
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
WTe will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard." 4
1 [S
2 [S
[See above, p. 302.]
[See above, p. 324 ».]
3 [The first draft has a different passage here : —
" What is meant by style in the constant sense of exact scholarship is
literally the pillar and ground of the Truth ; that is to say, it is the
method of language by which any true thing may be most clearly both
uttered and established ; and it is so necessarily and by law of destiny
this, that the farther reversed necessity follows — namely, that whether in
painting, sculpture, or literature, ONLY A TRUE THING CAN BE WELL SAID.
I have put this sentence in capitals, being the sum of what concerning all
the arts of my life has been all spent in learning, though hitherto wasted
in asserting to a general public which had established its faith not only in
the expediency, but the pleasantness and artistic loveliness, of Lies."]
4 [King Henry V., Act i. sc. 2: compare Elements of Prosody, § 41 (Vol. XXXI.
p. 371). The lines are referred to also in Fors Clavigera, Letter 14 (Vol. XXVII.
p. 244).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 335
(2) " My gracious Silence, hail !
Would' st thou have laughed, had I come coffin' d home
That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear
And mothers that lack sons." l
66. Let us note, point by point, the conditions of great-
ness common to both these passages, so opposite in temper.
(A.) Absolute command over all passion, however in-
tense; this the first-of-first conditions, (see the King's own
sentence just before, •* We are no tyrant, but a Christian
King, Unto whose grace our passion is as subject As are
our wretches fettered in our prisons ") ; and with this self-
command, the supremely surveying grasp of every thought
that is to be uttered, before its utterance ; so that each may
come in its exact place, time, and connection. The slightest
hurry, the misplacing of a word, or the unnecessary accent
on a syllable, would destroy the " style " in an instant.
(B.) Choice of the fewest and simplest words that can
be found in the compass of the language, to express the
thing meant : these few words being also arranged in the
most straightforward and intelligible way ; allowing inver-
sion only when the subject can be made primary without
obscurity : (thus, " his present, and your pains, we thank
you for" is better than "we thank you for his present and
your pains," because the Dauphin's gift is by courtesy put
before the Ambassador's pains; but "when to these balls
our rackets we have matched " would have spoiled the style
in a moment, because — I was going to have said, ball and
racket are of equal rank, and therefore only the natural
order proper; but also here the natural order is the desired
one, the English racket to have precedence of the French
ball. In the fourth line the " in France " comes first, as
announcing the most important resolution of action ; the
"by God's grace" next, as the only condition rendering
resolution possible ; the detail of issue follows with the
strictest limit in the final word. The King does not say
1 [Cvriolunus, Act ii. sc. 1 : compare Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV.
p. 227).]
336 ON THE OLD ROAD
" danger," far less " dishonour," but " hazard " only ; of that
he is, humanly speaking, sure.
67. (C.) Perfectly emphatic and clear utterance of the
chosen words ; slowly in the degree of their importance,
with omission however of every word not absolutely re-
quired ; and natural use of the familiar contractions of final
dissyllable. Thus "play a set shall strike" is better than
"play a set that shall strike," and "match'd" is kingly short
— no necessity of metre could have excused " matched "
instead. On the contrary, the three first words, " We are
glad," would have been spoken by the king more slowly and
fully than any other syllables in the whole passage, first
pronouncing the kingly "we" at its proudest, and then the
" are " as a continuous state, and then the " glad," as the
exact contrary of what the ambassadors expected him to be.*
(D.) Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and
necessarily as the heart beats. The king cannot speak other-
wise than he does — nor the hero. The words not merely
come to them, but are compelled to them. Even lisping
numbers " come," l but mighty numbers are ordained, and
inspired.
(E.) Melody in the words, changeable with their passion,
fitted to it exactly, and the utmost of which the language
is capable — the melody in prose being Eolian and variable —
in verse, nobler by submitting itself to stricter law. I will
enlarge upon this point presently.
(F.) Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that
each carries not only its instant meaning, but a cloudy
companionship of higher or darker meaning according to the
passion — nearly always indicated by metaphor : " play a set "
* A modern editor — of whom I will not use the expressions which
occur to me — finding the "we" a redundant syllable in the iambic line,
prints, "we're."2 It is a little thing — but I do not recollect, in the forty
years of my literary experience, any piece of editor's retouch quite so base.
But I don't read the new editions much : that must be allowed for.
1 [Pope, Epistle to Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires, line 127.]
2 [See The Works of Shakespeare, edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, 1875.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 337
— sometimes by abstraction — (thus in the second passage
" silence " for silent one) sometimes by description instead
of direct epithet (" coffined " for dead) but always indicative
of there being more in the speaker's mind than he has said,
or than he can say, full though his saying be. On the
quantity of this attendant fulness depends the majesty of
style; that is to say, virtually, on the quantity of contained
thought in briefest words, such thought being primarily
loving and true : and this the sum of all — that nothing can
be well said, but with truth, nor beautifully, but by love.
68. These are the essential conditions of noble speech in
prose and verse alike, but the adoption of the form of
verse, and especially rymed verse, means the addition to all
these qualities of one more; of music, that is to say, not
Eolian merely, but Apolline ; a construction or architecture
of words fitted and befitting, under external laws of time
and harmony.
When Byron says "rhyme is of the rude,"* he means
* Island, ii. 5. I was going to say, " Look to the context," but am
fain to give it here ; for the stanza, learned by heart, ought to be our
school-introduction to the literature of the world.
ft Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine ;
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye,
But yields young history all to harmony ;
A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one loug-cherish'd ballad's simple stave,
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,
Thau all the columns Conquest's minions rear ;
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme
For sages' labours or the student's dream ;
Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil —
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil,
Such was this rude rhyme — rhyme is of the rude,
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,
Who came and conquer'd ; such, wherever rise
Lands which no foes destroy or civilize,
Exist ; and what can our accomplished art
Of verse do more than reach the awaken' d heart? "
338 ON THE OLD ROAD
that Burns needs it, — while Henry the Fifth does not, nor
Plato, nor Isaiah — yet in this need of it by the simple,
it becomes all the more religious : and thus the loveliest
pieces of Christian language are all in ryme— -the best of
Dante, Chaucer, Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney.
69. I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of
modern scholarship ; (nor, to say the truth, do I make the
effort, the first edge of its waves being mostly muddy, and
apt to make a shallow sweep of the shore refuse:) so that
I have no better book of reference by me than the con-
fused essay on the antiquity of ryme at the end of Turner's
Anglo-Saxons.1 I cannot however conceive a more inte-
resting piece of work, if not yet done, than the collection of
sifted earliest fragments known of rymed song in European
languages. Of Eastern I know nothing; but, this side
Hellespont, the substance of the matter is all given in King
Canute's impromptu
" Gaily " (or is it sweetly ? — I forget which, and it's no matter 2) " sang the
monks of Ely,
As Knut the king came sailing by ; "
much to be noted by any who make their religion lugu-
brious, and their Sunday the eclipse of the week.3 And
observe further, that if Milton does not ryme, it is because
his faculty of Song was concerning Loss, chiefly ; and he
has little more than faculty of Croak, concerning Gain ;
while Dante, though modern readers never go further with
him than into the Pit,* is stayed only by Casella in the
ascent to the Rose of Heaven.5 So, Gibbon can write in
Ms manner the Fall of Rome ; but Virgil, in his manner,
1 ["Essay on the Antiquity of Rime in Europe/' vol. iii. pp. 652-660 in
Sharon Turner's History of England, 1836 (vols. i.-iii. being the History of Anglo-
Saxons). There is an interesting essay on the origin of rhymed verse in the Intro-
duction to Archbishop Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry.]
2 [It is " merrily " ; for the original lines in Anglo-Saxon, see the Ely Chronicle
given at vol. iii. p. 505 of Thomas Gale's Histories Britannicee, Saxonicee, Anglo-
Danicce Scriptores, xv., 1691. For Ruskin's early note of the lines, see Prceteritu,
i. § 205.]
3 [See Prceterita, i. $ 21 (Vol. XXXV.).]
4 [Compare Vol. XXII. p. 101 and n., and Vol. XXVII. p. 410.]
5 [Purgatorio, ii. 107 *eq.: see Vol. XV. p. 205 n., and Vol. VII. p. 432.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 339
the rise of it ; and finally Douglas, in his manner, bursts into
such rymed passion of praise both of Rome and Vrirgil, as
befits a Christian Bishop, and a good subject of the Holy
See : —
" Master of Masters — sweet source, and springing well,
Wide where over all rings thy heavenly bell;
Why should I then with dull forehead and vain,
With rude ingene, and barane, eraptive brain,
With bad harsh speech, and lewit barbare tongue
Presume to write, where thy sweet bell is rung,
Or counterfeit thy precious wordis dear ?
Na, na — not so ; but kneel when I them hear. . . .
But farther more — and lower to descend
Forgive me, Virgil, if I thee offend;
Pardon thy scolar, suffer him to ryme
Since thou wast but ane mortal man sometime." 1
" Before honour is humility." 2 Does not clearer light
come for you on that law after reading these nobly pious
words? And note you whose humility? How is it that
the sound of the bell comes so instinctively into his chim-
ing verse ? This gentle singer is the son of — Archibald
Bell-the-Cat!s
70. And now perhaps you can read with right sympathy
the scene in Marmion between his father and King James: —
" His hand the monarch sudden took —
' Now, by the Bruce's soul,
Angus, my hasty speech forgive,
For sure as doth his spirit live,
As he said of the Douglas old
I well may say of you, —
That never king did subject hold,
In speech more free, in war more bold,
More tender and more true : '
And while the king his hand did strain
The old man's tears fell down like rain."4
I believe the most infidel of scholastic readers can
scarcely but perceive the relation between the sweetness,
1 [From the Preface of Bishop Douglas's translation of the JEneid (as quoted
above, p. 300 n.), p. 3 (lines 12, 13, 23-28) and p. 11 (lines 41-44).]
2 [Proverbs xv. 33.]
* [Gawin Douglas, third son of Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus (1449-1514),
who declared to his confederates that he would bell the cat — i.e., kill the Earl
of Mar, the hated favourite of James III.] * [Canto v. stanza 16.]
xxxiv. Y
340 ON THE OLD ROAD
simplicity, and melody of expression in these passages, and
the gentleness of the passions they express, while men who
are not scholastic, and yet are true scholars, will recognize
further in them that the simplicity of the educated is
lovelier than the simplicity of the rude. Hear next a piece
of Spenser's teaching how rudeness itself may become more
beautiful even by its mistakes, if the mistakes are made
lovingly : —
"Ye shepherds' daughters that dwell on the green,
Hye you there apace;
Let none come there but that virgins been
To adorn her grace :
And when you come, whereas she in place,
See that your rudeness do not you disgrace
Bind your fillets fast,
And gird in your waste.
For more fineness, with a taudry lace.
Bring hither the pink and purple cullumbine
With gylliflowers ;
Bring coronations, and sops in wine,
Worn of paramours ;
Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies
And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies ;
The pretty paunce
And the chevisaunce
Shall match with the fair flowre-delice." *
71. Two short pieces more only of master song, and we
have enough to test all by : —
(1) "No more, no more, since thou art dead,
Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed,
No more, at yearly festivals,
We cowslip balls
Or chains of columbines shall make,
For this or that occasion's sake.
No, no ! our maiden pleasures be
Wrapt in thy winding-sheet with thee. " f
* Shepherd's Calendar. "Coronation," loyal-pastoral for Carnation ; "sops
in wine," jolly-pastoral for double pink ; " paunce," thoughtless pastoral
for pansy; "chevisaunce," I don't know (not in Gerarde1); "flowre-delice"
— pronounce dellice — half made up of "delicate" and "delicious."
f Herrick, Dirge for Jepkthah's Daughter.
1 ["Not identified; Dr. Prior has suggested the wall-flower" (New English
Dictionary).']
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 341
(2) "Death is now the phoenix nest.
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest.
Truth may seem, but cannot be ;
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she :
Truth and beauty buried be." *
72. If now, with the echo of these perfect verses in
your mind, you turn to Byron, and glance over, or recall
to memory, enough of him to give means of exact com-
parison, you will, or should, recognize these following kinds
of mischief in him. First, if any one offends him — as for
instance Mr. Southey, or Lord Elgin1 — "his manners have
not that repose that marks the caste,"2 etc. This defect
in his Lordship's style, being myself scrupulously and even
painfully reserved in the use of vituperative language, I
need not say how deeply I deplore, t
Secondly. In the best and most violet-bedded bits of his
work there is yet, as compared with Elizabethan and earlier
verse, a strange taint; and indefinable — evening flavour of
Covent Garden, as it were ; — not to say, escape of gas
in the Strand. That is simply what it proclaims itself —
London air. If he had lived all his life in Green-head
Ghyll, things would of course have been different. But it
was his fate to come to town — modern town — like Michael's
son;3 and modern London (and Venice) are answerable for
the state of their drains, not Byron.
Thirdly. His melancholy is without any relief whatso-
ever ; his jest sadder than his earnest ; while, in Elizabethan
work, all lament is full of hope, and all pain of balsam.
Of this evil he has himself told you the cause in a
* Passionate Pilgrim.
f In this point compare the Curse of Minerva with the Tears of the
Muses.*
1 [For Byron on Southey, see, e.g., Don Juan, i. 222, x. 13 ; and on Elgin, the
Curse of Minerva.']
[Tennyson : Lady Clara Vere de Vere.]
3 [See Wordsworth's Michael (compare vol. IV. p. 393), of which the scene is
laid "up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gliylf."]
4 [To the Curse of Minerva, there is a reference in Vol. XIV. p. 160. For
Kuskin's numerous references to Spenser, see the General Index.]
342
single line, prophetic of all things since and now. " Where
lie gazed, a gloom pervaded space." *
So that, for instance, while Mr. Wordsworth, on a visit
to town, being an exemplary early riser, could walk, felici-
tous, on Westminster Bridge, remarking how the city now
did like a garment wear the beauty of the morning;1
Byron, rising somewhat later, contemplated only the garment
which the beauty of the morning had by that time received
for wear from the city: and again, while Mr. Wordsworth,
in irrepressible religious rapture, calls God to witness that
the houses seem asleep, Byron, lame demon as he was,
flying smoke-drifted, unroofs the houses at a glance, and
sees what the mighty cockney heart of them contains in
the still lying of it, and will stir up to purpose in the
waking business of it,
"The sordor of civilization, mixed
With all the passions which Man's fall hath fixed." ~f
73. Fourthly, with this steadiness of bitter melancholy,
there is joined a sense of the material beauty, both of inani-
mate nature, the lower animals, and human beings, which
in the iridescence, colour-depth, and morbid (I use the word
deliberately) mystery and softness of it, — with other qualities
indescribable by any single words, and only to be analysed
* "He," — Lucifer; (Vision of Judgment, 24). It is precisely because
Byron was not his servant,2 that he could see the gloom. To the Devil's
true servants, their Master's presence brings both cheerfulness and pros-
perity ; with a delightful sense of their own wisdom and virtue ; and of
the " progress " of things in general : — in smooth sea and fair weather, —
and with no need either of helm touch, or oar toil : as when once one is
well within the edge of Maelstrom.
•}• Island, ii. 4 ; perfectly orthodox theology, you observe ; no denial of
the fall, — nor substitution of Bacterian birth for it. Nay, nearly Evangelical
theology, in contempt for the human heart ; but with deeper than Evan-
gelical humility, acknowledging also what is sordid in its civilization.
1 [Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1803: —
"The City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning . . .
* Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still."]
2 [See above, p. 333.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 343
by extreme care, — is found, to the full, only in five men
that I know of in modern times ; namely, Rousseau, Shelley,
Byron, Turner, and myself,1 — differing totally and through-
out the entire group of us, from the delight in clear-struck
beauty of Angelico and the Trecentist! ; and separated,
much more singularly, from the cheerful joys of Chaucer,
Shakespeare, and Scott, by its unaccountable affection for
" Rokkes blak" 2 and other forms of terror and power, such
as those of the ice-oceans, which to Shakespeare were only
Alpine rheum ; 3 and the Via Malas and Diabolic Bridges
which Dante would have condemned none but lost souls
to climb, or cross ; 4 — all this love of impending mountains,
coiled thunder-clouds, and dangerous sea, being joined in
us with a sulky, almost ferine, love of retreat in valleys of
Charmettes,6 gulphs of Spezzia, ravines of Olympus, low
lodgings in Chelsea, and close brushwood at Coniston.
74. And, lastly, also in the whole group of us, glows
volcanic instinct of Astreean justice6 returning not to, but
up out of, the earth, which will not at all suffer us to
rest any more in Pope's serene " whatever is, is right " ; 7
but holds, on the contrary, profound conviction that about
ninety-nine hundredths of whatever at present is, is wrong:
conviction making four of us, according to our several
manners, leaders of revolution for the poor, and declarers
of political doctrine monstrous to the ears of mercenary
mankind ; and driving the fifth, less sanguine, into mere
painted-melody of lament over the fallacy of Hope and the
implacableness of Fate.8
1 [For Raskin's kinship with Rousseau, see his letters in Vol. XVIIJ. pp.
xxxviii., Ixii. ; for Byron, as one of his masters, Praeterita, i. §§ 163-174 ; and
for his early sympathy with Shelley, Vol. I. p. 253 n. For Turner's sympathy
with Byron, see Vol. XIII. p. 143, and Vol. XXXIII. p. 373.]
2 [Chaucer, Frankeleyns Tale, line 131.]
1 'King Henry V., Act iii. sc. 5.]
* On Dante's view of mountains, see Vol. V. p. 303.]
5 [For Ruskin's visit to " Les Charmettes," the house near Chambery occupied
by Rousseau and Madame de Varens, see Prceterita, ii. § 210.]
1 [See above, p. 316.]
\Essay on Man, Epistle I. (last line).]
1 [For Turner's written Fallacies of Hope, from which he used to quote lines in
order to point the moral of his pictures of "the implacableness of Fate," see
Vol. VII. p. 386, and Vol. XII. p. 125.]
344 ON THE OLD ROAD
In Byron the indignation, the sorrow, and the effort
are joined to the death : and they are the parts of his
nature (as of mine also in its feebler terms), which the
selfishly comfortable public have, literally, no conception of
whatever; and from which the piously sentimental public,
offering up daily the pure oblation of divine tranquillity,
shrink with anathema not unembittered by alarm.
75. Concerning which matters I hope to speak further
and with more precise illustration in my next paper ; * but,
seeing that this present one has been hitherto somewhat
sombre, and perhaps, to gentle readers, not a little discom-
posing, I will conclude it with a piece of light biographic
study, necessary to my plan, and as conveniently admissible
in this place as afterwards; — namely, the account of the
manner in which Scott — whom we shall always find, as afore-
said,2 to be in salient and palpable elements of character,
of the World, worldly, as Burns is of the Flesh, fleshly,
and Byron of the Deuce, damnable, — spent his Sunday.
76. As usual, from Lockhart's farrago we cannot find
out the first thing we want to know, — whether Scott
worked after his week-day custom, on the Sunday morning.
But, I gather, not; at all events his household and his
cattle rested (L. iii. 108-109). I imagine he walked out into
his woods, or read quietly in his study. Immediately after
breakfast, whoever was in the house, " Ladies and gentle-
men, I shall read prayers at eleven, when J expect you
all to attend" (vii. 305). Question of college and other
externally unanimous prayers settled for us very briefly :
"if you have no faith, have at least manners." He read
the Church of England service, lessons and all, the latter,
if interesting, eloquently (ibid.). After the service, one of
Jeremy Taylor's sermons (vi. 188). After sermon, if the
weather was fine, walk with his family, dogs included and
guests, to cold picnic (iii. 109), followed by short extempore
biblical novelettes ; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament
especially, by heart, it having been his mother's last gift
1 [See below, pp. 361-368.] 2 [See above, § 49 (p. 317).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 345
to him (vi. 174). These lessons to his children in Bible
history were always given, whether there was picnic or
not. For the rest of the afternoon he took his pleasure in
the woods with Tom Purdie, who also always "appeared
at his master's elbow on Sunday after dinner was over, and
drank long life to the laird and his lady and all the good
company, in a quaigh of whisky 6r a tumbler of wine,
according to his fancy" (vi. 193). Whatever might happen
on the other evenings of the week, Scott always dined at
home on Sunday ; and with old friends : never, unless in-
evitably, receiving any person with whom he stood on cere-
mony (v. 334). He came into the room rubbing his hands
like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, his Peppers
and Mustards gambolling about him, " and even the stately
Maida grinning and wagging his tail with sympathy"
(v. 335). For the usquebaugh of the less honoured week-
days, " at the Sunday board he circulated the champagne
briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each
man's fair share afterwards" (v. 339). In the evening,
music being to the Scottish worldly mind indecorous, he
read aloud some favourite author, for the amusement or
edification of his little circle. Shakespeare it might be, or
Dryden, — Johnson, or Joanna Baillie, — Crabbe, or Words-
worth. But in those days " Byron was pouring out his
spirit fresh and full, and if a new piece from his hand had
appeared, it was sure to be read by Scott the Sunday even-
ing afterwards; and that with such delighted emphasis as
showed how completely the elder bard had kept up his
enthusiasm for poetry at pitch of youth, and all his admira-
tion of genius, free, pure, and unstained by the least drop
of literary jealousy" (v. 341).
77. With such necessary and easily imaginable varieties
as chanced in having Dandie Dinmont or Captain Brown
for guests at Abbotsford, or Colonel Mannering, Counsellor
Pleydell, and Dr. Robertson in Castle Street,1 such was
1 [For the possible originals of Dandie Diumoiit, see Lockhart, i. 267, and
v. 131 ; Colonel Mannering is connected by Ruskin with one of Scott's Indian
346 ON THE OLD ROAD
Scott's habitual Sabbath : a day, we perceive, of eating the
fat, (dinner, presumably not cold, being a work of necessity
and mercy — thou also, even thou, Saint Thomas of Trum-
bull,1 hast thine !) and drinking the sweet, abundant in the
manner of Mr. Southey's cataract of Lodore, — " Here it
comes, sparkling. "; A day bestrewn with coronations and
sops in wine ; 3 deep in libations to good hope and fond
memory ; a day of rest to beast, and mirth to man, (as
also to sympathetic beasts that can be merry,) and conclud-
ing itself in an Orphic hour of delight,4 signifying peace
on Tweedside, and goodwill to men,6 there or far away;—
always excepting the French, and Boney.
"Yes, and see what it all came to in the end."
Not so, dark-virulent Minos-Mucklewrath ; 6 the end
came of quite other things ; of these, came such length of
days and peace7 as Scott had in his Fatherland, and such
immortality as he has in all lands.
78. Nathless, firm, though deeply courteous, rebuke, for
his sometimes overmuch light-mindedness, was administered
to him by the more grave and thoughtful Byron. For
the Lord Abbot of Newstead knew his Bible by heart8 as
well as Scott, though it had never been given him by his
mother as her dearest possession.9 Knew it, and, what was
uncles (see Vol. XXVII. p. 581) ; Counsellor Pleydell was Andrew Crosbie (1733-
1785), a noted Scottish advocate; "Dr. Robertson" must be a slip for "the
colleague of Dr. Robertson " described in Guy Mannering, ch. xxxvii.]
1 [For Tom Trumbull, or Tam Turnpenny, the sanctimonious hypocrite (Red-
gauntlet, chaps. 12-14), see below, § 113 (p. 382). Mr. Trumbull was in the habit,
as he expressed it, " of sanctifying the liquor by a long grace."]
1 [For a criticism of this poem, see below, p. 395.]
3 See above, p. 340.1
* [See above, p. 313.J
* [Luke ii. 14.]
6 [The reference is to the mad preacher, Habakkuk Muckle wrath, called " Magor-
Missabib," in Old Mortality (chiips. xxi. , xxxi., xxxii., xxxiv.).]
7 [Proverbs iii. 16, 17.]
8 [See his letter to Murray of October 9, 1821 (vol. v. p. 391, Prothero's ed.) :
" Send me a common Bible, of a good legible print (bound in Russia). I have one, but
as it was the last gift of my sister (whom I shall probably never see again), I can
only use it carefully, and less frequently, because I like to keep it in good order.
Don't forget this, for I am a great reader and admirer of those books, and had read
them through and through before I was eight years old, that is to say, the Old
Testament, for the New struck me as a task, but the other as a pleasure. I speak
as a boy, from the recollector's impression of that period at Aberdeen in 1796. ']
» [See above, § 76.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— III 347
more, had thought of it, and sought in it what Scott had
never cared to think, nor been fain to seek.
And loving Scott well, and always doing him every
possible pleasure in the way he sees to be most agreeable
to him — as, for instance, remembering with precision, and
writing down the very next morning, every blessed word
that the Prince Regent had been pleased to say of him
before courtly audience,1 — he yet conceived that such cheap
ryming as his own Bride of Abydos, for instance, which
he had written from beginning to end in four days,2 or
even the travelling reflections of Harold and Juan on men
and women, were scarcely steady enough Sunday afternoon's
reading for a patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicates
to him a work of a truly religious tendency, on which for
his own part he has done his best, — the drama of Cain.
Of which dedication the virtual significance to Sir Walter
might be translated thus : — Dearest and last of Border
soothsayers, thou hast indeed told us of Black Dwarfs, and
of White Maidens, also of Grey Friars, and Green Fairies ; 3
also of sacred hollies by the well, and haunted crooks in
the glen. But of the bushes that the black dogs rend
in the woods of Phlegethon ; and of the crooks in the
glen, and the bickerings of the burnie where ghosts meet
the mightiest of us ; and of the black misanthrope, who is
by no means yet a dwarfed one, and concerning whom
wiser creatures than Hobbie Elliot may tremblingly ask
" Gude guide us, what's yon ? " 4 hast thou yet known,
seeing that thou hast yet told, nothing.
Scott may perhaps have his answer. We shall in good
time hear.6
1 [See Byron's letter of July 6, 1812, in Lockhart, vol. iii. p. 399.]
2 [See Byron's Journal, November 16, 1813: "1 sent Lord Holland the proofs
of the last Giaour, and The Bride of Abydos. He won't like the latter, and I don't
think that I shall long. It was written in four nights to distract my thoughts "
( Works of Byron : Letters and Journals, 1898, vol. ii. p. 321).]
8 [See Glenfinlas, stanzas 39, 41 ; and for the rest, chief The Black Dwarf and
The Monastery.']
* ["Gude guide us, what's yon?" is not said by Hobbie Elliot, but by Edie
Ochiltree (Antiquary, ch. xxv.). Ruskin confuses this and Hobbie's " Gude preserve
us, Earnscliff, what can yon be?" (Black Dwarf, ch. ii.).J
8 [The papers, however, came to an end before Ruskin dealt with this subject.]
IV1
[WORDSWORTH AND BYRON]
79. I FEAR the editor of the Nineteenth Century will get
little thanks from his readers for allowing so much space
in closely successive numbers to my talk of old-fashioned
men and things. I have nevertheless asked his indulgence,
this time, for a note or two concerning yet older fashions,
in order to bring into sharper clearness the leading out-
lines of literary fact, which I ventured only in my last paper
to secure in silhouette, obscurely asserting itself against the
limelight of recent moral creed, and fiction manufacture.
The Bishop of Manchester, on the occasion of the
great Wordsworthian movement in that city for the en-
largement, adornment, and sale of Thirlmere, observed, in
his advocacy of these operations, that very few people, he
supposed, had ever seen Thirlmere.2 His Lordship might
have supposed, with greater felicity, that very few people had
1 [Nineteenth Century, November 1880.]
2 [The reference is to the speech by Dr. Fraser at the banquet held in Man-
chester on September 13, 1877, to celebrate the opening of the new Town Hall.
The agitation against the proposed Manchester water-works at Thirlmere was then
very active, and the Bishop, referring to it, said : " He thought there was no
need for those carpings which dainty and witty gentlemen leading a pleasant club
life in London indulged in at the expense of Manchester when they told them
what a vulgar sort of people they were with their Town Hall and the like, and
that it was a thing not to be heard of, their proposal to fetch a prime necessity
of life from a Westmorland or Cumberland lake. He thought they had a right
to stand up and claim their inheritance in England, and to say that the two millions
of people had a right to draw a prime necessity of life from any portion of the
country of England to which they could get lawful access. . . . He suspected that
many went over the Lake District and came back without seeing Thirlmere." He
also defended the scheme on the ground that it would make Thirlmere " twice as
large" (see report in the Manchester Guardian, September 14). Ruskin refers to
the same passage in Fors Clavigera, Letter 84, where he speaks of the Bishop's
"Thirlmere thirst "(Vol. XXIX. p. 290); and to the speech in other connexions at
Vol. XXII. p. 515, and Vol. XXIX. p. 274. For his numerous references to the
Thirlmere water- works, see General Index.]
348
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 349
ever read Wordsworth. My own experience in that matter
is that the amiable persons who call themselves " Words-
worthian " have read — usually a long time ago — " Lucy
Gray," " The April Mornings," a picked sonnet or two,
and the " Ode on the Intimations," 1 which last they seem
generally to be under the impression that nobody else has
ever met with: and my further experience of these senti-
mental students is, that they are seldom inclined to put in
practice a single syllable of the advice tendered them by
their model poet.
Now, as I happen myself to have used Wordsworth as
a daily text-book from youth to age,2 and have lived, more-
over, in all essential points according to the tenor of his
teaching, it was matter of some mortification to me, when,
at Oxford, I tried to get the memory of Mr. Wilkinson's
spade 3 honoured by some practical spadework at Ferry
Hincksey,4 to find that no other tutor in Oxford could see
the slightest good or meaning in what I was about; and
that although my friend Professor Rolleston5 occasionally
sought the shades of our Rydalian laurels 6 with expressions
of admiration, his professorial manner of " from pastoral
graves extracting thoughts divine " 7 was to fill the Oxford
Museum with the scabbed skulls of plague-struck cretins.8
80. I therefore respectfully venture to intimate to my
bucolic friends, that I know, more vitally by far than they,
what is in Wordsworth, and what is not. Any man who
chooses to live by his precepts will thankfully find in them
a beauty and rightness, (exquisite Tightness I called it, in
1 [For references by Ruskin to " Lucy Gray," see Vol. XXXII. p. 136 n., and
Vol. XXXIII. p. 205 ; to " The April Mornings," Vol. XVIII. p. 296 ; and to the
" Ode," above.]
8 fFor Ruskin's quotations from Wordsworth, constant throughout his books, see
the General Index.]
3 [See above, § 51 (p. 320).]
4 'For an account of the Ruskin diggings, see Vol. XX. pp. xli.-xlv.]
5 'For other references to him, see Vol. XXII. pp. 336, 518.]
' [See No. 1 of Poems composed or suggested during a Tour in the Summer of
1833 ("Adieu, Rydalian Laurels").]
7 [See above, § 62 (p. 332).]
8 [Compare The Storm-Cloud, § 80 (above, p. 73).]
350 ON THE OLD ROAD
Sesame and Lilies,1) which will preserve him alike from
mean pleasure, vain hope, and guilty deed: so that he will
neither mourn at the gate of the fields which with covetous
spirit he sold, nor drink of the waters which with yet more
covetous spirit he stole, nor devour the bread of the poor
in secret, nor set on his guest-table the poor man's lamb : * —
in all these homely virtues and assured justices let him be
Wordsworth's true disciple ; and he will then be able with
equanimity to hear it said, when there is need to say so,
that his excellent master often wrote verses that were not
musical, and sometimes expressed opinions that were not
profound.3
And the need to say so becomes imperative, when the
unfinished verse, and uncorrected fancy, are advanced by
the affection of his disciples into places of authority where
they give countenance to the popular national prejudices
from the infection of which, in most cases, they themselves
sprang.
81. Take, for example, the following three and a half
lines of the 38th Ecclesiastical Sonnet : 4 —
" Amazement strikes the crowd ; while many turn
Their eyes away in sorrow, others burn
With scorn, invoking a vindictive ban
From outraged Nature."
The first quite evident character of these lines is that
they are extremely bad iambics, — as ill-constructed as they
are unmelodious ; the turning and burning being at the
wrong ends of them, and the ends themselves put just
when the sentence is in its middle.
But a graver fault of these three and a half lines is that
the amazement, the turning, the burning, and the banning,
are all alike fictitious ; and foul-fictitious, calumniously con-
ceived no less than falsely. Not one of the spectators of
1 [Vol. XVIII. p. 124.]
2 'The references here are to Proverbs ix. 17 (see also the Bishop of Manchester's
speech about Thirlmere, p. 348 ».) ; Habakkuk iii. 14; and 2 Samuel xii. 4.]
3 [Compare above, § 49 (pp. 317-318), and § 62 (p. 332) for an unmusical line.]
* [Headed ''Scene in Venice."]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 351
the scene referred to was in reality amazed — not one con-
temptuous, not one maledictory. It is only our gentle
minstrel of the meres who sits in the seat of the scornful1
— only the hermit of Rydal Mount who invokes the malison
of Nature.
What the scene verily was, and how witnessed, it will
not take long to tell ; nor will the tale be useless : but I
must first refer the reader to a period preceding, by nearly
a century, the great symbolic action under the porch of
St. Mark's.
82. The Protestant ecclesiastic, and infidel historian, who
delight to prop their pride, or edge their malice, in unveil-
ing the corruption through which Christianity has passed,
should study in every fragment of authentic record which
the fury of their age has left, the lives of the three queens
of the Priesthood, Theodora, Marozia, and Matilda.2 and the
foundation of the merciless power of the Popes, by the monk
Hildebrand. And if there be any of us who would satisfy
with nobler food than the catastrophes of the stage, the
awe at what is marvellous in human sorrow which makes
sacred the fountain of tears in authentic tragedy, let them
follow, pace by pace, and pang by pang, the humiliation of
the fourth Henry at Canossa, and his death in the church
he had built to the Virgin at Spires.
His antagonist, Hildebrand, died twenty years before
him ; captive to the Normans in Salerno, having seen the
Rome in which he had proclaimed his princedom over all
1 [Psalms i. 1.]
* [" During the Papacy of Sergius III. (904-911) rose into power the infamous
Theodora, with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, the prostitutes who, in the
strong language of historians, disposed for many years of the Papal tiara, and not
content with disgracing by their own licentious lives the chief city of Christendom,
actually placed their profligate paramours or base-born sons in the chair of St.
Peter: ' Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Book v. ch. xi. (vol. iii. p. 288, small
edition). For the scandal which the enemies of Hildebrand (Gregory VII.) attached
to his alliance with Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, see ibid., Book vii. ch. ii. (vol. iv.
p. 65). The story of Henry IV.'s submission at Canossa (1077) may be read in
the same chapter. The Emperor died (1106) not at Spires, but in his camp at
Liege ; his body remained unburied in the chapel of St. Afra, which he had built
on the north side of the Cathedral of Spires. Five years later it was placed in
the Cathedral.]
352 ON THE OLD ROAl)
the earth, laid in her last ruin ; l and for ever. Rome her-
self, since her desolation by Guiscard, has been only a
grave and a wilderness* — what we call Rome, is a mere
colony of the stranger in her " Field of Mars." This
destruction of Rome by the Normans is accurately and
utterly the end of her Capitoline and wolf-suckled power;
and from that day her Leonine or Christian power takes
its throne in the Leonine city, sanctified in tradition by
its prayer of safety for the Saxon Borgo, in which the
childhood of our own Alfred had been trained.2
And from this date -forward, (recollected broadly as 1090,
the year of the birth of St. Bernard,) no longer oppressed
by the remnants of Roman death, — Christian faith, chivalry,
and art possess the world, and recreate it, through the space
of four hundred years — the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth,
and fifteenth centuries.
And, necessarily, in the first of these centuries comes
the main debate between the powers of Monk and Knight
which was reconciled in this scene under the porch of
St. Mark's.
83. That debate was brought to its crisis and issue by
the birth of the new third elemental force of the State — the
Citizen.3 Sismondi's republican enthusiasm does not permit
him to recognize the essential character of this power. He
speaks always of the Republics and the liberties of Italy,
* Childe Harold, iv. 79 > compare Adonais, and Sismondi, vol. i. p. 148.*
1 [Rome was taken by Henry IV. at Christmas 1083 ; and a few days later
captured and pillaged by the Normans under Robert Guiscard. The Pope then
withdrew " from the smoking ruins " under the protection of Guiscard, first to Monte
Casino and afterwards to Salerno, where he died in 1085 : see Milman, Book vii.
ch. iii.]
2 [For the references here, see Pleasures of England, § 105 and n. (Vol. XXXIII.
p. 498).]
3 [Compare Val d'Arno, ch. iii. (Vol. XXIII. pp. 46 seq.).]
* ["The Niobe of nations," etc. The next reference is to stanza xlix. of
Adonais : —
" Go thou to Rome, at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city and the wilderness."
For the passage in Sismondi, see ch. vii. (vol. ii. p. 32, Paris ed. of 1826).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 353
as if a craftsman differed from a knight only in political
privileges, and as if his special virtue consisted in rendering
obedience to no master. But the strength of the great
cities of Italy was no more republican than that of her
monasteries, or fortresses. The Craftsman of Milan, Sailor
of Pisa, and Merchant of Venice are all of them essentially
different persons from the soldier and the anchorite : — but
the city, under the banner of its caroccio? and the com-
mand of its podesta, was disciplined far more strictly than
any wandering military squadron by its leader, or any lower
order of monks under their abbot. In the founding of civic
constitutions, the Lord of the city is usually its Bishop : —
and it is curious to hear the republican historian — who,
however in judgment blind, is never in heart uncandid,
prepare to close his record of the ten years' war of Como
with Milan, with this summary of distress to the heroic
mountaineers — that " they had lost their Bishop Guido, who
was their soul."2
84. I perceive for quite one of the most hopeless of
the many difficulties which Modernism finds, and will find,
insuperable either by steam or dynamite, that of either
wedging or welding into its own cast-iron head, any con-
ception of a king, monk, or townsman of the twelfth and
two succeeding centuries. And yet no syllable of the
utterance, no fragment of the arts of the Middle Ages, far
less any motive of their deeds, can be read even in the
letter— how much less judged in spirit — unless, first of all,
we can somewhat imagine all these three Living souls.
First, a king who was the best knight in his kingdom,
and on whose own swordstrokes hung the fate of Christen-
dom. A king such as Henry the Fowler, the first and
third Edwards of England, the Bruce of Scotland, and this
Frederic the First of Germany.3
1 [See Sismoiidi, ch. vi. (vol. i. p. 380); and compare Vol. XXIV. p. 135.]
3 [Sismoudi, ch. vii. (vol. ii. p. 15). The "ten years' war" was 1118-1127.]
3 [For references in a similar sense, see for Henry the Fowler, Vol. XVIII.
pp. 517 *<?</. ; and for Edward III., Vol. XXIII. p. 160, Vol. XXVII. p. 385. For
various references to Frederic Barbarossa and Edward I., see the General Index.]
354 ON THE OLD ROAD
Secondly, a monk who had been trained from youth in
greater hardship than any soldier, and had learned at last
to desire no other life than one of hardship ; — a man believ-
ing in his own and his fellows' immortality, in the aiding
powers of angels, and the eternal presence of God ; versed
in all the science, graceful in all the literature, cognisant of
all the policy of his age; and fearless of any created thing,
on the earth or under it.
And, lastly, a craftsman absolutely master of his craft,
and taking such pride in the exercise of it as all healthy
souls take in putting forth their personal powers : proud
also of his city and his people ; enriching, year by year,
their streets with loftier buildings, their treasuries with
rarer possession ; and bequeathing his hereditary art to a
line of successive masters, by whose tact of race, and
honour of effort, the essential skills of metal-work in gold
and steel, of pottery, glass-painting, woodwork, and weaving,
were carried to a perfectness never to be surpassed ; and
of which our utmost modern hope is to produce a not
instantly detected imitation.
These three kinds of persons, I repeat, we have to con-
ceive before we can understand any single event of the
Middle Ages. For all that is enduring in them was done
by men such as these. History, indeed, records twenty
undoings for one deed, twenty desolations for one redemp-
tion ; and thinks the fool and villain potent as the wise
and true. But Nature and her laws recognize only the
noble : generations of the cruel pass like the darkness of
locust plagues ; while one loving and brave heart establishes
a nation.
85. I give the character of Barbarossa in the words of
Sismondi, a man sparing in the praise of emperors : —
"The death of Frederic was mourned even by the cities which so long
had been the objects of his hostility, and the victims of his vengeance.
All the Lombards — even the Milanese — acknowledged his rare courage, his
constancy in misfortune — his generosity in conquest.
" An intimate conviction of the justice of his cause had often rendered
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 355
him cruel, even to ferocity, against those who still resisted ; but after
victory he took vengeance only on senseless walls ; and irritated as he had
been by the people of Milan, Crema, and Tortona, and whatever blood he
had shed during battle, he never sullied his triumph by odious punish-
ments. In spite of the treason which he on one occasion used against
Alessandria, his promises were in general respected ; and when, after the
peace of Constance, the towns which had been most inveterately hostile
to him received him within their walls, they had no need to guard
against any Attempt on his part to suppress the privileges he had once
recognized." l
My own estimate of Frederic's character would be scarcely
so favourable; it is the only point of history on which I
have doubted the authority even of my own master, Car-
lyle.2 But I am concerned here only with the actualities
of his wars in Italy, with the people of her cities, and the
head of her religion.
86. Frederic of Suabia, direct heir of the Ghibelline
rights, while nearly related by blood to the Guelph houses
of Bavaria and Saxony, was elected Emperor almost in the
exact middle of the twelfth century (1152). He was called
into Italy by the voices of Italians. The then Pope,
Eugenius III., invoked his aid against the Roman people
under Arnold of Brescia. The people of Lodi prayed his
protection against the tyrannies of Milan.
Frederic entered the plain of Verona in 1154, by the
valley of the Adige, — ravaged the territory of Milan, —
pillaged and burned Tortona, Asti, and Chieri, — kept his
Christmas at Novara; marched on Rome, — delivered up
Arnold to the Pope* (who, instantly killing him, ended for
that time Protestant reforms in Italy) — destroyed Spoleto ;
and returned by Verona, having scorched his path through
Italy like a level thunderbolt along the ground.3
* Adrian the Fourth. Eugenius died in the previous year.
1 [Ch. xii. (vol. ii. pp. 257-258).]
2 [See Friedrich, Book ii. ch. v. : "Barbarossa, greatest of all the Kaisers of
that or any other House. ... A magnificent magnanimous man," etc.]
3 [For the events summarised down to this point, see Sismondi, vol. ii. ch. ix.
For the subsequent events down to the foundation of Alessandria (1168), § 88,
ibid., ch. x.]
XXXIV. Z
356 ON THE OLD ROAD
Three years afterwards, Adrian died ; and, chiefly, by
the love and will of the Roman people, Roland of Siena
was raised to the Papal throne, under the name of Alex-
ander III. The conclave of cardinals chose another Pope,
Victor III. ; Frederic on his second invasion of Italy (1158)
summoned both elected heads of the Church to receive
judgment of their claims before him.
The Cardinals' Pope, Victor, obeyed. The people's
Alexander, refused; answering that the successor of St.
Peter submitted himself to the judgment neither of em-
perors nor councils.
The spirit of modern prelacy may perhaps have rendered
it impossible for an English churchman to conceive this
answer as other than that of insolence and hypocrisy. But
a faithful Pope, and worthy of his throne, could answer no
otherwise. Frederic of course at once confirmed the claims
of his rival; the German bishops and Italian cardinals in
council at Pavia joined their powers to the Emperor's, and
Alexander, driven from Rome, wandered — unsubdued in
soul — from city to city, taking refuge at last in France.
87. Meantime, in 1159, Frederic took and destroyed
Crema, having first bound its hostages to his machines
of war. In 1161, Milan submitted to his mercy, and he
decreed that her name should perish. Only a few pillars
of a Roman temple, and the church of St. Ambrose, remain
to us of the ancient city. Warned by her destruction,
Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, and Venice, joined in
the vow — called of the Lombard League — to reduce the
Emperor's power within its just limits. And, in 1164,
Alexander, under the protection of Louis VII. of France
and Henry II. of England, returned to Rome, and was
received at Ostia by its senate, clergy, and people.
Three years afterwards, Frederic again swept down on
the Campagna ; attacked the Leonine city, where the basilica
of the Vatican, changed into a fortress ancj held by the
Pope's guard, resisted his assault until, by the Emperor's
order, fire was set to the Church of St. Mary of Pity.
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 357
The Leonine city was taken; the Pope retired to the
Coliseum, whence, uttering once again his fixed defiance
of the Emperor, but fearing treachery, he fled in disguise
down the Tiber to the sea, and sought asylum at Benevento.
The German army encamped round Rome in August
of 1167, with the sign before their eyes of the ruins of the
church of Our Lady of Pity. The marsh-fever struck them
— killed the Emperor's cousin, Frederic of Rothenburg, the
Duke of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishops
of Liege, Spire, Ratisbonne, and Verden, and two thousand
knights ; the common dead were uncounted. The Emperor
gathered the wreck of his army together, retreated on
Lombardy, quartered his soldiery at Pavia, and escaped in
secret over the Mont Cenis with thirty knights.
88. No places of strength remained to him south of the
Alps but Pavia and Montferrat ; and to hold these in check,
and command the plains of Piedmont, the Lombard League
built the fortress city, which, from the Pope who had main-
tained through all adversity the authority of his throne and
the cause of the Italian people, they named "Alessandria."
Against this bulwark the Emperor, still indomitable,
dashed with his utmost regathered strength after eight years
of pause,1 and in the temper in which men set their souls
on a single stake. All had been lost in his last war, except
his honour — in this, he lost his honour also. Whatever
may be the just estimate of the other elements of his
character, he is unquestionably, among the knights of his
time, notable in impiety. In the battle of Cassano, he
broke through the Milanese vanguard to their caroccio, and
struck down with his own hand its golden crucifix ; 2 — two
years afterwards its cross and standard were bowed before
him — and in vain.* He fearlessly claims for himself right
* " All the multitudes threw themselves on their knees, praying mercy
in the name of the crosses they bore : the Count of Blandrata took a cross
from the enemies with whom he had served, and fell at the foot of the
1 [The period between his attacks seems, however, to be 1168-1174.]
2 [In 1160: see Sismondi, ch. ix. (vol. ii. p. 121).]
358 ON THE OLD ROAD
of decision between contending popes, and camps against
the rightful one on the ashes of the Church of the Virgin.1
Foiled in his first assault on Alessandria, detained before
it through the inundations of the winter, and threatened
by the army of the League in the spring, he announced a
truce to the besieged, that they might keep Good Friday.
Then violating alike the day's sanctity and his own oath,
he attacked the trusting city through a secretly completed
mine. And, for a second time, the verdict of God went
forth against him. Every man who had obtained entrance
within the city was slain or cast from its ramparts ; — the
Alessandrines threw all their gates open — fell, with the
broken fugitives, on the investing troops, scattered them in
disorder, and burned their towers of attack. The Emperor
gathered their remains into Pavia on Easter Sunday,—
spared in his defeat by the army of the League.2
89. And yet, once more, he brought his cause to com-
bat-trial. Temporising at Lodi with the Pope's legates,
he assembled, under the Archbishops of Magdebourg and
Cologne, and the chief prelates and princes of Germany,
a seventh army ; brought it down to Como across the
Spliigen, put himself there at its head, and in the early
spring of 1176, the fifteenth year since he had decreed the
effacing of the name of Milan, was met at Legnano by the
spectre of Milan.
Risen from her grave, she led the Lombard League in
this final battle. Three hundred of her nobles guarded her
caroccio ; nine hundred of her knights bound themselves —
throne, praying for mercy to them. All the court and the witnessing army
were in tears — the Emperor alone showed no sign of emotion. Distrust-
ing his wife's sensibility, he had forbidden her presence at the ceremony ;
the Milanese, unable to approach her, threw towards her windows the
crosses thev carried, to plead for them." — Sismondi (French edition), vol. ii.
p. 127.
1 [Sismondi, ch. x. p. 161.]
* [For these events of 1174-1175, see Sismondi, ch. xi. (vol. ii. pp. 197-201) ;
and for those in §§ 89, 90, ibid., pp. 207-210.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 359
under the name of the Cohort of Death l — to win for her,
or to die.
The field of battle is in the midst of the plain, now
covered with maize and mulberry trees, from which the
traveller, entering Italy by the Lago Maggiore, sees first
the unbroken snows of the Rosa behind him, and the
white pinnacles of Milan Cathedral in the south. The Em-
peror, as was his wont, himself led his charging chivalry.
The Milanese knelt as it came ; — prayed aloud to God, St.
Peter, and St. Ambrose — then advanced round their caroccio
on foot. The Emperor's charge broke through their ranks
nearly up to their standard — then the Cohort of Death rode
against him.
90. And all his battle changed before them into flight.
For the first time in stricken field, the imperial standard
fell, and was taken. The Milanese followed the broken
host until their swords were weary ; and the Emperor,
struck fighting from his horse, was left, lost among the
dead. The Empress, whose mercy to Milan he had for-
bidden, already wore mourning for him in Pavia, when her
husband came, solitary and suppliant, to its gate.
The lesson at last sufficed ; and Barbarossa sent his
heretic bishops to ask forgiveness of the Pope, and peace
from the Lombards.
Pardon and peace were granted — without conditions.
" Csesar's successor " had been the blight of Italy for a
quarter of a century; he had ravaged her harvests, burnt
her cities, decimated her children with famine, her young
men with the sword ; and, seven times over, in renewed
invasion, sought to establish dominion over her, from the
Alps to the rock of Scylla.
She asked of him no restitution ; — coveted no province
— demanded no fortress — of his land. Neither coward nor
robber, she disdained alike guard and gain upon her fron-
tiers : she counted no compensation for her sorrow ; and set
1 [Sismondi, vol. ii. p. 207. For another reference to the "Bamliera della
Morte," see Storni-Cloud, § 15 (above, p. 20), and Vol. XXIV. pp. 456-457.]
360 ON THE OLD ROAD
no price upon the souls of her dead. She stood in the
porch of her brightest temple — between the blue plains of
her earth and sea, and, in the person of her spiritual father,
gave her enemy pardon.
" Black demons hovering o'er his mitred head," think
you, gentle sonnetteer of the daffodil-marsh ? 1 And have
Barbarossa's race been taught of better angels how to bear
themselves to a conquered emperor, — or England, by braver
and more generous impulses, how to protect his exiled son ?
The fall of Venice, since that day, was measured by
Byron in a single line :
" An Emperor tramples, where an emperor knelt." 2
But what words shall measure the darker humiliation of
the German pillaging his helpless enemy, and England
leaving her ally under the savage's spear?3
91. With the clues now given, and an hour or two's
additional reading of any standard historian he pleases, the
reader may judge on secure grounds whether the truce
of Venice and peace of Constance4 were of the Devil's
making : whereof whatever he may ultimately feel or affirm,
this at least he will please note for positive, that Mr.
Wordsworth, having no shadow of doubt of the complete
wisdom of every idea that comes into his own head, writes
down in dogmatic sonnet his first impression of black in-
strumentality in the business; so that his innocent readers,
taking him for their sole master, far from caring to inquire
into the thing more deeply, may remain even unconscious
that it is disputable, and for ever incapable of conceiving
either a Catholic's feeling, or a careful historian's hesitation,
1 [For the reference to Wordsworth here, see Fors Clawgera, Letter 76
(Vol. XXIX. p. 84).]
1 [Childe Harold, iv. 12. For other references to the passage, and the event
described in it, see Stones of Venice, vol. i. (Vol. IX. p. 28) ; Vol. XXIV. p. 410 ;
and Bible of Amiens, ch. iv. § 35 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 147).]
3 [For other references to the Franco-German war, see the General Index. The
French Prince Imperial, Eugene Louis Napoleon, had volunteered for service in
the Zulu campaign of 1879 ; he and those with him were surprised on a recon-
naissance, and while others escaped he was killed (June 1).]
* [At Venice, 1177 ; at Constance, June 25, 1183 : see Sismondi, ch. xi. p. 230.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 361
touching the centrally momentous crisis of power in all
the Middle Ages ! Whereas Byron, knowing the history
thoroughly, and judging of Catholicism with an honest
and open heart, ventures to assert nothing that admits of
debate, either concerning human motives or angelic pre-
sences ; but binds into one line of massive melody the
unerringly counted sum of Venetian majesty and shame.
92. In a future paper,1 I propose examining his method
of dealing with the debate, itself on a higher issue : and
will therefore close the present one by trampling a few of
the briars and thorns of popular offence out of our way.2
The common counts against Byron are in the main,
three.
(I.) That he confessed — in some sort, even proclaimed
defiantly (which is a proud man's natural manner of con-
fession)*— the naughtiness of his life.
The hypocrisy t even of Pall Mall and Petit Trianon
does not, I assume, and dares not, go so far as to condemn
* The most noble and tender confession is in Allegra's epitaph, "I shall
go to her, but she shall not return to me."
f Hypocrisy is too good a word for either Pall Mall or Trianon, being
justly applied (as always in the New Testament), only to men whose false
religion has become earnest, and a part of their being : so that they com-
pass heaven and earth to make a proselyte.3 There is no relation between
minds of this order and those of common rogues. Neither Tartuffe nor
Joseph Surface are hypocrites — they are simply impostors : but many of
the most earnest preachers in all existing churches are hypocrites in the
highest ; and the Tartuffe-Squiredom and Joseph Surface-Masterhood of our
1 [The series of papers was, however, interrupted by illness ; and when it was
resumed a year later, the next paper, which was the last, dealt with other topics.]
2 [The MS. has here the following expansion of the last sentence of (I.) : —
" The first thing you have got to do, in reading Byron to purpose, is
to remember his motto, 'Trust Byron.' You always may; and the more,
that he takes some little pleasure at first in offending you. But all he
says is true, nevertheless, though what worst of himself there is to tell,
he insists upon at once ; and what good there may be, mostly leaves you
to find out. To the end of his life, he had a schoolboy's love of getting
into mischief: and a general instinct for never doing anything he was
bid ; which extends up even as far as the Commandments themselves.
But he never either recommends you to break them, or equivocates in
the smallest degree to himself about what they are.
"The counts . . ."]
8 [Matthew xxiii. 15.]
362 ON THE OLD ROAD
the naughtiness itself? And that he did confess it, is pre-
cisely the reason for reading him by his own motto,
" Trust Byron." You always may ; and the common
smooth-countenanced man of the world is guiltier in the
precise measure of your higher esteem for him.
(II.) That he wrote about pretty things which ought
never to be heard of.
In the presence of the exact proprieties of modern
Fiction, Art, and Drama, I am shy of touching on the
question of what should be mentioned, and seen — and
should not. All that I care to say, here, is that Byron
tells you of realities, and that their being pretty ones is,
to my mind, — at the first (literally) blush of the matter,
rather in his favour. If however you have imagined that
he means you to think Dudu as pretty as Myrrha,* or even
Haidee, whether in full dress or none, as pretty as Marina,
it is your fault, not his.
93. (III.) That he blasphemed God and the King.
Before replying to this count, I must ask the reader's
patience in a piece of very serious work, the ascertain-
ment of the real and full meaning of the word Blasphemy.1
It signifies simply "Harmful speaking " —Male-diction — or
shortly " Blame " ; and may be committed as much against
a child or a dog, if you desire to hurt them, as against
virtuous England which build churches and pay priests to keep their peasants
and hands peaceable, so that rents and per cents may be spent, unnoticed,
in the debaucheries of the metropolis, are darker forms of imposture than
either heaven or earth have yet been compassed by ; and what they are
to end in, heaven and earth only know. Compare again, Island, ii. 4,
" the prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain," and Juan, viii. 25, 26.
* Perhaps some even of the attentive readers of Byron may not have
observed the choice of the three names — Myrrha (bitter incense), Marina
(sea lady), Angiolina (little angel) — in relation to the plots of the three
plays.2
1 [Compare The Storm-Cloud, § 80 (above, p. 72).]
2 [The plays of Sardanapalus (whose favourite is Myrrha) ; The Two Foscari
(Marina, wife of young Foscari) ; and Marino Faliero (Angiolina, wife of the Doge).
For Dudu, see Don Juan, vi. 40 geq. ; and for Haidee, ibid., ii. 112 seq. For another
reference to Myrrha, Angiolina, and Marina, see Modern Painters, vol. iii. (Vol. V.
p. 373).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 363
the Deity. And it is, in its original use, accurately op-
posed to another Greek word, " Euphemy," which means a
reverent and loving manner of benediction — fallen entirely
into disuse in modern sentiment and language.
Now the compass and character of essential Male-diction,
so-called in Latin, or Blasphemy, so-called in Greek, may,
I think, be best explained to the general reader by an
instance in a very little thing, first translating the short
pieces of Plato which best show the meaning of the word
in codes of Greek morality: —
" These are the things then " (the true order of the Sun, Moon, and
Planets), " oh my friends, of which I desire that all our citizens and
youths should learn at least so much concerning the Gods of Heaven, as
not to blaspheme concerning them, but to eupheme reverently, both in
sacrificing, and in every prayer they pray." — Laws, VII. Steph. 821.
" And through the whole of life, beyond all other need for it, there
is need of Euphemy from a man to his parents, for there is no heavier
punishment than that of light and winged words," (to them) ? " for Nemesis,
the angel of Divine Recompense, has been throned Bishop over all men
who sin in such manner." — IV. Steph. 717.
The word which I have translated "recompense" is
more strictly that " heavenly Justice " 1 — the proper Light
of the World, from which nothing can be hidden, and by
which all who will may walk securely ; 2 whence the mystic
answer of Ulysses to his son, as Athena, herself invis-
ible, walks with them, filling the chamber of the house
with light, "This is the justice of the Gods who possess
Olympus."3 See the context in reference to which Plato
quotes the line (Laws, X. Steph. 904 4). The little story
that I have to tell is significant chiefly in connection with
the second passage of Plato above quoted.
1 [See above, p. 315 ».]
2 John viii. 12.]
1 Odyssey, xix. 42.]
* [" And when the soul changes greatly, either for better or worse, by her own
strong impulse or the strong influence of others, when she has communion with
divine beauty and becomes divine, she is carried into another and better place,
which is also divine and perfect in holiness ; and when she has communion with
evil, then she also changes the place of her life. For that is the justice of the
Gods," etc. (Jowett's translation).]
364 ON THE OLD ROAD
94. I have elsewhere mentioned1 that I was a homebred
boy, and that as my mother diligently and scrupulously
taught me my Bible and Latin Grammar, so my father
fondly and devotedly taught me my Scott, my Pope, and
my Byron.* The Latin grammar out of which my mother
taught me was the llth edition of Alexander Adam's —
(Edinb. : Bell and Bradfute, 1823) — namely, that Alexander
Adam, Rector of Edinburgh High School, into whose upper
class Scott passed in October 1782, and who — previous
masters having found nothing noticeable in the heavy-
looking lad — did find sterling qualities in him, and " would
constantly refer to him for dates, and particulars of battles,
and other remarkable events alluded to in Horace, or
whatever other authors the boys were reading; and called
him the historian of his class " (L. i. 126). That Alex.
Adam, also, who, himself a loving historian, remembered
the fate of every boy at his school during the fifty years
he had headed it, and whose last words — " It grows dark,
the boys may dismiss,"2 gave to Scott's heart the vision
and the audit of the death of Elspeth of the Craigburn-
foot.3
Strangely, in opening the old volume at this moment
(I would not give it for an illuminated missal) I find, in
its article on Prosody, some things extremely useful to me,
which I have been hunting for in vain through Zumpt and
* I shall have lost my wits very finally when I forget the first time
that I pleased my father with a couplet of English verse (after many a
year of trials) ; and the radiant joy on his face as he declared, reading it
aloud to my mother with emphasis half choked by tears, — that "it was as
fine as anything that Pope or Byron ever wrote ! "
1 [In the passages of autobiography in Fors Clavigera, afterwards incorporated
in Prceterita: see Vol. XXXV.]
2 ["The Doctor was struck with palsy while teaching his class. He survived
a few days, but becoming delirious before his dissolution, conceived he was still in
school, and after some expressions of applause or censure, he said, 'But it grows
dark — the boys may dismiss' — and instantly expired" (Sir Walter Scott's autobio-
graphical chapter at the beginning of Lockhart's Life). Compare Preeterita, ii.
1 229.1
» [See The Antiquary, ch. xl.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 365
Matthias.1 In all rational respects I believe it to be the
best Latin Grammar that has yet been written.2
When my mother had carried me through it as far as
the syntax, it was thought desirable that I should be put
under a master : and the master chosen was a deeply and
deservedly honoured clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Dale,
mentioned in Mr. Holbeach's article, " The New Fiction "
(Contemporary Review for February of this year3), together
with Mr. Melvill,4 who was our pastor after Mr. Dale
went to St. Pancras.
95. On the first day when I went to take my seat in
Mr. Dale's schoolroom, I carried my old grammar to him,
in a modest pride, expecting some encouragement and
honour for the accuracy with which I could repeat, on
demand, some hundred and sixty close-printed pages of it.
But Mr. Dale threw it back to me with a fierce bang
upon his desk, saying (with accent and look of seven-times-
heated scorn), "That's a Scotch thing."5
Now, my father being Scotch, and an Edinburgh High
School boy, and my mother having laboured in that book
with me since I could read, and all my happiest holiday
time having been spent on the North Inch of Perth,6 these
four words, with the action accompanying them, contained
as much insult, pain, and loosening of my respect for my
parents, love of my father's country, and honour for its
worthies, as it was possible to compress into four syllables
and an ill-mannered gesture. Which were therefore pure,
double-edged and point -envenomed blasphemy. For to
make a boy despise his mother's care, is the straightest
way to make him also despise his Redeemer's voice ; and
to make him scorn his father and his father's house, the
1 [Adam gives, first, a clear account of " Accent," " Verse," " Feet," " Different
Kinds of Verse," etc., pp. 270-285 ; and then an account of English verse, pp. 28fi-
290.]
[So Ruskin says again, with no qualification, in Prceterita^ i. § G4.]
Vol. 37, p. 252.]
]For the Rev. Henry Melvill, see Prceterita, ii. § 157-]
'See Prceterita, i. § 92, for another reference to this incident.]
[See Fors Clavigera, Letter 63, and Prceterita, i. § 70.]
366 ON THE OLD ROAD
straightest way to make him deny his God, and his God's
Heaven.
96. I speak, observe, in this instance, only of the
actual words and their effect ; not of the feeling in the
speaker's mind, which was almost playful, though his words,
tainted with extremity of pride, were such light ones as
men shall give account of at the Day of Judgment. The
real sin of blasphemy is not in the saying, nor even in the
thinking ; but in the wishing which is father to thought
and word : and the nature of it is simply in wishing evil
to anything; for as the quality of Mercy is not strained,1
so neither that of Blasphemy, the one distilling from the
clouds of Heaven, the other from the steam of the Pit.
He that is unjust in little is unjust in much, he that is
malignant to the least is to the greatest, he who hates the
earth which is God's footstool, hates yet more Heaven
which is God's throne, and Him that sitteth thereon.2
Finally, therefore, blasphemy is wishing ill to any thing ;
and its outcome is in Vanni Fucci's extreme " ill manners "
—wishing ill to God.3
On the contrary, Euphemy is wishing well to every-
thing, and its outcome is in Burns' extreme "good
manners," wishing well to —
" Ah ! wad ye tak a thought, and men' ! " 4
That is the supreme of Euphemy.
97. Fix then, first in your minds, that the sin of
malediction, whether Shimei's individual,5 or John Bull's
national, is in the vulgar malignity, not in the vulgar
diction, and then note further that the "phemy" or
" fame " of the two words, blasphemy and euphemy, sig-
nifies broadly the bearing of false witness against one's
neighbour6 in the one case, and of true witness for him in
Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1.]
Luke xvi. 10 ; Isaiah Ixvi. 1 ; Revelation vii. 15.]
'Inferno, xxv. 1 : compare Vol. XXVIII. pp. 764-765.]
Address to the De'il.]
2 Samuel xiii. 8.]
Exodus xx. 16.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 367
the other : so that while the peculiar province of the blas-
phemer is to throw firelight on the evil in good persons,
the province of the euphuist (I must use the word inaccu-
rately for want of a better) is to throw sunlight on the
good in bad ones ; such, for instance, as Bertram, Meg
Merrilies, Rob Roy, Robin Hood,1 and the general run of
Corsairs, Giaours, Turks, Jews, Infidels, and Heretics ; nay,
even sisters of Rahab, and daughters of Moab and Ammon ; 2
and at last the whole spiritual race of him to whom it was
said, " If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? " 3
98. And being thus brought back to our actual subject,
I purpose, after a few more summary notes on the lustre
of the electrotype language of modern passion,4 to examine
what facts or probabilities lie at the root both of Goethe's
and Byron's imagination of that contest between the powers
of Good and Evil, of which the Scriptural account appears
to Mr. Huxley so inconsistent with the recognized laws of
political economy ; and has been, by the cowardice of our
old translators, so maimed of its vitality, that the frank
Greek assertion of St. Michael's not daring to blaspheme
the devil,* is tenfold more mischievously deadened and
* Of our tingle-tangle-titmouse disputes in Parliament5 like Robins in
a bush, but not a Robin in all the house knowing his great A, hear again
Plato: "But they, for ever so little a quarrel, uttering much voice, blas-
pheming, speak evil one of another, — and it is not becoming that in a
city of well-ordered persons, such things should be — no ; nothing of them
nohow nowhere, — and let this be the one law for all — let nobody speak
mischief of anybody (pjSeva Ka/ojyopeiVco //.TjSei's)." — Laws, Book xi. 934 E ;
and compare Book iv. 717.°
1 [For other references to — Bertram, see below, § 117 (p. 386), aud Fors Clavi-
gera, Letter 34 (Vol. XXVII. p. 631); Meg Merrilies, Ariadne Florentine, §211
(Vol. XXII. p. 444, with the other passages there noted), and Vol. XXXIII.
p. 489. For Rob Roy, see Sesame and Lilies, § 59 (Vol. XVIII. p. 115); and for
him and Robin Hood (in Ivanhoe), Vol. XXVII. p. 243.]
2 [See Joshua ii. 13; and 1 Kings xi. 1, 7-]
3 Genesis iv. 7.]
* Here, again (compare p. 361 n.), Ruskin's scheme was not carried out.]
* [Compare Love's Meinie, § 135 (Vol. XXV. p. 128), and the other passages
there noted.]
* [The references to these passages have hitherto been wrongly given ; the
first of them (the passage quoted by Ruskin) as "ii. 935"; the second (to which
he only refers) as "iv. 117" (a page which does not exist). The first passage has
been identified as shown above ; the second is probably iv. 717.]
368 ON THE OLD ROAD
caricatured by their periphrasis of "durst not bring against
him a railing accusation,"1 than by Byron's apparently — and
only apparently — less reverent description of the manner of
angelic encounter for an inferior ruler of the people : —
"Between His Darkness and His Brightness
There passed a mutual glance of great politeness."2
PARIS, September 20, 1880.
POSTSCRIPT
99. I am myself extremely grateful, nor doubt a like
feeling in most of my readers, both for the information
contained in the first of the two following letters ; and the
correction of references in the second, of which, however,
I have omitted some closing sentences which the writer
will, I think, see to have been unnecessary.3
NORTH STREET, WIRKSWORTH,
August 2, 1880.
DEAR SIR, — When reading your interesting article in the June number
of the Nineteenth Century, and your quotation from Walter Scott, I was
struck with the great similarity between some of the Scotch words and
my native tongue (Norwegian). Whigmaleerie, as to the derivation of which
you seem to be in some perplexity,4 is in Norwegian Fcegmaleri. Vceg,
pronounced " Vegg," signifying wall, and Maleri " picture," pronounced
almost the same as in Scotch, and derived from at male, to paint. Siccan
is in Danish sikken, used more about something comical than great, and
scarcely belonging to the written language, in which slig, such, and slig en,
such a one, would be the equivalent. I need not remark that as to the
1 [Jude 9. The Greek is : oi)*c M\^t)<re Kpivtv iTreveyKeiv ft\aff<prifjudf. So, too, the
Vulgate: "non est ausus judicium iuferre blasphemiae."]
* [Vision of Judgment, 36.]
8 [Here, in the Nineteenth Century, the following paragraph followed (with
references to pages and lines, here altered to sections) : —
"I find press corrections always irksome work, and in my last paper
trust the reader's kindness to insert the words ' of metre ' after ' necessity '
in § 67, line 7; with commas after 'passion' and 'exactly' in lines 21, 22
of the same § ; and correct 'rest' to 'nest' in § 71, line 11, and 'emotion'
to 'oblation' in § 74, line 18."
The corrections were made in On the Old Boad.]
* [See above, p. 298.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— IV 369
written language Danish and Norwegian is the same, only the dialects
differ.
Having been told by some English friends that this explanation would
perhaps not be without interest to yourself, I take the liberty of writing
this letter. — I remain yours respectfully,
THEA BERG.
INNER TEMPLB, September 9, 1880.
SIR, — In your last article on Fiction, Foul and Fair (Nineteenth Century
September 1880) you have the following note :
" Juan, viii. 5 " (it ought to be 9)> " but by your Lordship's quotation,
Wordsworth says ' instrument ' not ' daughter.' "
Now in Murray's edition of Byron, 1837, octavo, his Lordship's quota-
tion is as follows : —
"But thy most dreaded instrument
In working out a pure intent
Is man arranged for mutual slaughter ;
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."
And his Lordship refers you to "Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode."
I have no early edition of Wordsworth. In Moxon's, 1844, no such
lines appear in the Thanksgiving Ode, but in the Ode dated 1815, and
printed immediately before it, the following lines occur: —
"But man is thy most awful instrument
In working out a pure intent."
It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that Wordsworth altered
the lines after Don Juan was written.1 — I am, with great respect, your
obedient servant,
RALPH THICKNESSE.
JOHN Kr.-Ki.v, £SQ.
1 [See on this subject, above, p. 326 «.]
THE TWO SERVANTS
100. I HAVE assumed throughout these papers, that every-
body knew what Fiction meant ; as Mr. Mill assumed in
his Political Economy, that everybody knew what wealth
meant.2 The assumption was convenient to Mr. Mill, and
persisted in : but, for my own part, I am not in the habit
of talking, even so long as I have done in this instance,
without making sure that the reader knows what I am
talking about; and it is high time that we should be
agreed upon the primary notion of what Fiction is.
A feigned, fictitious, artificial, super-natural, put-together-
out-of-one's-head, thing. All this it must be, to begin with.
The best type of it being the most practically fictile — a
Greek vase.3 A thing which has two sides to be seen, two
handles to be carried by, and a bottom to stand on, and a
top to be poured out of, this, every right fiction is, what-
ever else it may be. Planned rigorously, rounded smoothly,
balanced symmetrically, handled handily, lipped softly for
pouring out oil and wine. Painted daintily at last with
images of eternal things —
"For ever shalt thou love, and she be fair."4
101. Quite a different thing from a " cast," — this work
of clay in the hands of the potter, as it seemed good to
1 [Nineteenth Century, October 1881, with the title, as above. The MS. has the
date, " Amiens, St. Crispin's Day, 1880."]
2 [See Unto this Last, Preface, § 2 (Vol. XVII. p. 18).]
3 [Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 92 (Vol. XXIX. p. 457).]
4 [Keats' s Ode on a Grecian Urn. The line is "For ever thou wilt love and
she be fair." Mr. Wedderburu remembers pointing this out to Ruskiu when read-
ing the proof of this paper for him ; but Ruskiu left it, saying, " Never mind,
they'll see I quoted from memory." Compare the anecdote below, p. 726.]
370
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 371
the potter to make it. Very interesting, a cast from life
may perhaps be ; more interesting, to some people perhaps,
a cast from death ; — most modern novels are like specimens
from Lyme Regis, impressions of skeletons in mud.
"Planned rigorously" — I press the conditions again one
by one — it must be, as ever Memphian labyrinth1 or Nor-
man fortress. Intricacy full of delicate surprise ; covered
way in secrecy of accurate purposes, not a stone useless,
nor a word nor an incident thrown away.
" Rounded smoothly " — the wheel of Fortune revolving
with it in unfelt swiftness ; like the world, its story rising
like the dawn, closing like the sunset, with its own sweet
light for every hour.
" Balanced symmetrically " — having its two sides clearly
separate, its war of good and evil rightly divided. Its
figures moving in majestic law of light and shade.
" Handled handily " — so that, being careful and gentle,
you can take easy grasp of it and all that it contains ; a
thing given into your hand henceforth to have and to
hold. Comprehensible, not a mass that both your arms
cannot get round ; tenable, not a confused pebble heap of
which you can only lift one pebble at a time.
" Lipped softly " — full of kindness and comfort : the
Keats line indeed the perpetual message of it — "For ever
shalt thou love, and she be fair." All beautiful fiction is
of the Madonna, whether the Virgin of Athens or of Judah
— Pan-Athenaic always.
And all foul fiction is Use majeste to the Madonna
and to womanhood. For indeed the great fiction of every
human life is the shaping of its Love, with due prudence,
due imagination, due persistence and perfection from the
beginning of its story to the end ; for every human soul,
its Palladium. And it follows that all right imaginative
work is beautiful, which is a practical and brief law con-
cerning it. All frightful things are either foolish, or sick,
visits of frenzy, or pollutions of plague.
1 [Herodotus, ii. 148: see Vol. XXVII. p. 407.]
XXXIV.
2 A
372 ON THE OLD ROAD
102. Taking thus the Greek vase at its best time, for
the symbol of fair fiction : of foul, you may find in the
great entrance-room of the Louvre, filled with the luxurious
orfevrerie of the sixteenth century, types perfect and in-
numerable : x Satyrs carved in serpentine, Gorgons platted in
gold, Furies with eyes of ruby, Scyllas with scales of pearl ;
infinitely worthless toil, infinitely witless wickedness ; plea-
sure satiated into idiocy, passion provoked into madness, no
object of thought, or sight, or fancy, but horror, mutilation,
distortion, corruption, agony of war, insolence of disgrace,
and misery of Death.
It is true that the ease with which a serpent, or some-
thing that will be understood for one, can be chased or
wrought in metal, and the small workmanly skill required
to image a satyr's hoof and horns, as compared to that
needed for a human foot or forehead, have greatly in-
fluenced the choice of subject by incompetent smiths ; and
in like manner, the prevalence of such vicious or ugly story
in the mass of modern literature is not so much a sign of
the lasciviousness of the age, as of its stupidity, though
each react on the other, and the vapour of the sulphurous
pool becomes at last so diffused in the atmosphere of our
cities, that whom it cannot corrupt, it will at least stultify.
103. Yesterday, the last of August, came to me from
the Fine Art Society, a series of twenty black and white
scrabbles* of which I am informed in an eloquent preface
that the author was a Michael Angelo of the glebe, and
that his shepherds and his herdswomen are akin in dignity
and grandeur to the prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine.
Glancing through the series of these stupendous produc-
tions, I find one peculiarly characteristic and expressive of
* Jean Francois Millet. Twenty Etchings and Woodcuts reproduced in
Facsimile, and Biographical Notice by William Ernest Henley. London,
1881.1
1 [Compare Vol. XXXIII. p. 246 n.]
2 [Raskin's quotations in §§ 104, 106 are from pp. 4, 5, 7 of Henley's Preface.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 373
modern picture-making and novel-writing, — called " Haul-
ing " or more definitely " Paysan rentrant du Fumier,"
which represents a man's back, or at least the back of his
waistcoat and trowsers, and hat, in full light, and a small
blot where his face should be, with a small scratch where
its nose should be, elongated into one representing a chink
of timber in the background.
Examining the volume farther, in the hope of discover-
ing some trace of reasonable motive for the publication of
these works by the Society, I perceive that this Michael
Angelo of the glebe had indeed natural faculty of no mean
order in him, and that the woful history of his life con-
tains very curious lessons respecting the modern conditions
of Imagination and Art.
104. I find in the first place, that he was a Breton pea-
sant ; his grandmother's godson, baptized in good hope, and
" christened Jean, after his father, and Fra^ois after the Saint of Assisi,
his godmother's patron. It was under her care and guidance and those of
his uncle, the Abbe Charles, that he was reared ; and the dignified and
laborious earnestness of these governors of his was a chief influence in his
life, and a distinguishing feature in his character. The Millet family led
an existence almost patriarchal in its unalterable simplicity and diligence ;
and the boy grew up in an environment of toil, sincerity and devoutness.
He was fostered upon the Bible, and the great book of nature. . . . When
he woke, it was to the lowing of cattle and the song of birds ; he was at
play all day, among ' the sights and sounds of the open landscape ; and
he slept with the murmur of the spinning-wheel in his ears, and the
memory of the evening prayer in his heart. . . . He learned Latin from
the parish priest, and from his uncle Charles ; and he soon came to be a
student of Virgil, . . . and while yet young in his teens began to follow
his father out into the fields, and thenceforward, as became the eldest boy
in a large family, worked hard at grafting and ploughing, sowing and
reaping, scything and shearing and planting, and all the many duties of
husbandmen. Meanwhile, he had taken to drawing . . . copied everything
he saw, and produced not only studies but compositions also ; until at last
his father was moved to take him away from farming, and have him
taught painting."
105. Now all this is related concerning the lad's early
life by the prefatory and commenting author, as if ex-
pecting the general reader to admit that there had been
some advantage for him in this manner of education : — that
374 ON THE OLD ROAD
simplicity and devoutness are wholesome states of mind ;
that parish cure's and uncle Abbe's are not betrayers or
devourers of youthful innocence — that there is profitable
reading in the Bible, and something agreeably soothing — if
no otherwise useful — in the sound of evening prayer. I
may observe also in passing, that his education, thus far,
is precisely what, for the last ten years, I have been
describing as the most desirable for all persons intending
to lead an honest and Christian life : (my recommendation
that peasants should learn Latin1 having been, some four
or five years ago, the subject of much merriment in the
pages of Judy and other such nurses of divine wisdom in
the public mind.) It however having been determined by
the boy's father that he should be a painter, and that art
being unknown to the Abbe' Charles and the village Cure
(in which manner of ignorance, if the infallible Pope did
but know it, he and his now artless shepherds stand at a
fatal disadvantage in the world as compared with monks
who could illuminate with colour as well as word) — the
simple young soul is sent for the exalting and finishing of
its artistic faculties to Paris.
106. " Wherein," observes my prefatory author, " the
romantic movement was in the full tide of prosperity."2
Hugo had written Notre Dame, and Musset had pub-
lished Holla and the Nuits ; Balzac the Lys dans la bailee ;
Gautier the Comedie de la Mort ; Georges Sand Leone
Leoui, and a score of wild and eloquent novels more ; and
under the instruction of these romantic authors, his landlady,
to whom he had entrusted the few francs he possessed, to
dole out to him as he needed, fell in love with him, and
finding he could not, or would not, respond to her advances,
confiscated the whole deposit, and left him penniless. The
preface goes on to tell us how, not feeling himself in har-
mony with these forms of Romanticism, he takes to the
study of the Infinite, and Michael Angelo; how he learned
1 [See Fors Clavigera, Letter 2 (Vol. XXVII. p. 27).]
2 [The following lines are summarised from Henley's Preface, p. 7-]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 375
to paint the Heroic Nude; how he mixed up for imitation
the manners of Rubens, Ribera, Mantegna, and Correggio ;
how he struggled all his life with neglect, and endured
with his family every agony of poverty; owed his butcher
and his grocer, was exposed to endless worry and annoyance
from writs and executions ; and when first his grandmother
died, and then his mother, neither deathbed was able to
raise the money that would have carried him from Barbizon
to Gruchy.
The work now laid before the public by the Fine Art
Society is to be considered, therefore — whatever its merits
or defects may be — as an expression of the influence of
the Infinite and Michael Angelo on a mind innocently pre-
pared for their reception. And in another place I may take
occasion1 to point out the peculiar adaptability of modern
etching to the expression of the Infinite, by the multitude
of scratches it can put on a surface without representing
anything in particular; and to illustration of the majesty
of Michael Angelo by preference of the backs and legs of
people to their faces.
107. But I refer to the book in this paper, partly indeed
because my mind is full of its sorrow, and I may not be
able to find another opportunity of saying so ; but chiefly,
because the author of the preface has summed the prin-
cipal authors of depraved Fiction in a single sentence ; 2
and I want the reader to ask himself why, among all the
forms of the picturesque which were suggested by this
body of literary leaders, none were acceptable by, none
helpful to, the mind of a youth trained in purity and
faith.
He will find, if he reflect, that it is not in romantic,
or any other healthy aim, that the school detaches itself
from those called sometimes by recent writers " classical " ;
but first by Infidelity, and an absence of the religious
element so total that at last it passes into the hatred of
1 [The occasion, however, was not found.]
2 [That is, the one quoted from in § 106, above.]
876 ON THE OLD ROAD
priesthood which has become characteristic of Republicanism ;
and secondly, by the taint and leprosy of animal passion
idealised as a governing power of humanity, or at least
used as the chief element of interest in the conduct of
its histories. It is with the Sin of Master Anthony that
Georges Sand (who is the best of them) overshadows the
entire course of a novel meant to recommend simplicity
of life — and by the weakness of Consuelo that the same
authoress thinks it natural to set off the splendour of the
most exalted musical genius.1
I am not able to judge of the degree of moral purpose,
or conviction, with which any of the novelists wrote. But
I am able to say with certainty that, whatever their pur-
pose, their method is mistaken, and that no good is ever
done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
108. All healthy and helpful literature sets simple bars
between right and wrong; assumes the possibility, in men
and women, of having healthy minds in healthy bodies,
and loses no time in the diagnosis of fever or dyspepsia
in either ; least of all in the particular kind of fever which
signifies the ungoverned excess of any appetite or passion.
The " dulness " which many modern readers inevitably feel,
and some modern blockheads think it creditable to allege, in
Scott, consists not a little in his absolute purity from every
loathsome element or excitement of the lower passions ; so
that people who live habitually in Satyric or hircine condi-
tions of thought find him as insipid as they would a pic-
ture of Angelico's. The accurate and trenchant separation
between him and the common railroad-station novelist is
that, in his total method of conception, only lofty character
is worth describing at all; and it becomes interesting, not
by its faults, but by the difficulties and accidents of the
fortune through which it passes, while, in the railway novel,
interest is obtained with the vulgar reader for the vilest
1 [For another reference to Consuelo, see above, § 22 (p. 286). Consuelo (1844),
like Lucretia Floriani (1847), was inspired by Chopin, whose declining health
Madame Dudevant tended for some years with motherly care.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 377
character, because the author describes carefully to his
recognition the blotches, burrs and pimples in which the
paltry nature resembles his own. The Mill on the Floss
is perhaps the most striking instance extant of this study
of cutaneous disease. There is not a single person in the
book of the smallest importance to anybody in the world
but themselves, or whose qualities deserved so much as a
line of printer's type in their description. There is no girl
alive, fairly clever, half educated, and unluckily related,
whose life has not at least as much in it as Maggie's, to be
described and to be pitied. Tom is a clumsy and cruel
lout, with the making of better things in him (and the
same may be said of nearly every Englishman at present
smoking and elbowing his way through the ugly world his
blunders have contributed to the making of) ; while the
rest of the characters are simply the sweepings out of a
Pentonville omnibus.*
109. And it is very necessary that we should distinguish
this essentially Cockney literature, — developed only in the
London suburbs, and feeding the demands of the rows
of similar brick houses, which branch in devouring cancer
round every manufacturing town, — from the really romantic
literature of France. Georges Sand is often immoral; but
she is always beautiful, and in the characteristic novel I
have named, Le Peche de Mom. Antoine? the five prin-
cipal characters, the old Cavalier Marquis, — -the Carpenter, —
M. de Chateaubrun, — Gilberte, — and the really passionate
and generous lover, are all as heroic and radiantly ideal as
* I am sorry to find that my former allusion to the boating expedition
in this novel2 has been misconstrued by a young authoress of promise
into disparagement of her own work ; not supposing it possible that I
could only have been forced to look at George Eliot's by a friend's imper-
fect account of it.
1 [For another reference to this book, see Vol. XXIX. p. 588.]
2 [See above, §§ 17, 22 (pp. 282, 286). Ruskin's criticism, there and here, of
George Eliot, who had recently died (December 22, 1880), was made matter of com-
plaint by a correspondent, to whom he replied in an interesting letter (October 2,
1881), now included in Arrows of the Chace (below, p. 658). The work of the
"young authoress" was Robert Forrester, by Mary Thompson (Longmans, 1875).]
378 ON THE OLD ROAD
Scott's Colonel Mannering, Catherine Seyton, and Roland
Graeme ; l while the landscape is rich and true with the
emotion of years of life passed in glens of Norman granite
and beside bays of Italian sea. But in the English Cock-
ney school, which consummates itself in George Eliot, the
personages are picked up from behind the counter and out
of the gutter ; and the landscape, by excursion train to
Gravesend, with return ticket for the City-road.
110. But the second reason for the dulness of Scott to
the uneducated or miseducated reader lies far deeper ; and
its analysis is related to the most subtle questions in the
Arts of Design.
The mixed gaiety and gloom in the plan of any modern
novel fairly clever in the make of it, may be likened,
almost with precision, to the patchwork of a Harlequin's
dress, well spangled; a pretty thing enough, if the human
form beneath it be graceful and active. Few personages
on the stage are more delightful to me than a good Harle-
quin ; also, if I chance to have nothing better to do, I can
still read my Georges Sand or Alfred de Musset with much
contentment, if only the story end well.
But we must not dress Cordelia or Rosalind in robes of
triangular patches, covered with spangles, by way of making
the coup daeil of them less dull ; and so the story-telling
of Scott is like the robe of the Sistine Zipporah — em-
broidered only on the edges with gold and blue, and the
embroidery involving a legend written in mystic letters.2
And the interest and joy which he intends his reader to
find in his tale, are in taking up the golden thread here
and there in its intended recurrence — and following, as it
rises again and again, his melody through the disciplined
and unaccented march of the fugue.
111. Thus the entire charm and meaning of the story
1 [For other references to Colonel Mannering, see above, p. 346 ; and to Catherine
Seyton and Roland Graeme (Abbot), p. 285.]
2 [For the embroidery on the robe in this painting by Botticelli, see Vol. XXII.
p. 427, and Vol. XXIII. p. 276. Ruskin's study of the figure is given as the
frontispiece to Vol. XXIII.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 379
of The Monastery depend on the degree of sympathy with
which we compare the first and last incidents of the appear-
ance of a character, whom perhaps not one in twenty readers
would remember as belonging to the dramatis personae —
Stawarth Bolton.
Childless, he assures safety in the first scene of the
opening tale to the widow of Glendinning and her two
children — the elder boy challenging him at the moment,
" I will war on thee to the death, when I can draw my
father's sword."1 In virtually the last scene, the grown
youth, now in command of a small company of spearmen
in the Regent Murray's service, is on foot, in the first pause
after the battle at Kennaquhair, beside the dead bodies of
Julian Avenel and Christie, and the dying Catherine:* —
Glendinning forgot for a moment his own situation and duties, and
was first recalled to them by a trampling of horse, and the cry of St.
George for England, which the English soldiers still continued to use. His
handful of men, for most of the stragglers had waited for Murray's coming
up, remained on horseback, holding their lances upright, having no com-
mand either to submit or resist.
"There stands our captain," said one of them, as a strong party of
English came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop.
" Your captain ! with his sword sheathed, and on foot in the presence
of his enemy ? a raw soldier, I warrant him," said the English leader.
" So ! ho ! young man, is your dream out, and will you now answer me if
you will fight or fly?"
" Neither," answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity.
" Then throw down thy sword and yield thee," answered the English-
man.
" Not till I can help myself no otherwise/' said Halbert, with the
same moderation of tone and manner.
"Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe
service ? " demanded the English captain.
"To the noble Earl of Murray."
" Then thou servest," said the Southron, " the most disloyal nobleman
who breathes — false both to England and Scotland."
"Thou liest," said Glendinning, regardless of all consequences.
"Ha! art thou so hot now, and wert so cold but a minute since? I
lie, do I ? Wilt thou do battle with me on that quarrel ? "
* I am ashamed to exemplify the miserable work of " review " by
mangling and mumbling this noble closing chapter of The Monastery, but
I cannot show the web of work, without unweaving it.
1 [Chapter ii. The quotation which follows is from the last chapter but one.]
380 ON THE OLD ROAD
"With one to one, one to two, or two to five, as you list," said Halbert
Glendinning; "grant me but a fair field."
"That thou shalt have. Stand back, my mates," said the brave Eng-
lishman. "If I fall, give him fair play, and let him go off free with his
people."
" Long life to the noble captain ! " cried the soldiers, as impatient to
see the duel as if it had been a bull-baiting.
" He will have a short life of it, though," said the sergeant, " if he,
an old man of sixty, is to fight for any reason, or for no reason, with
every man he meets, and especially the young fellows he might be father
to. And here comes the warden, besides, to see the sword-play."
In fact, Sir John Foster came up with a considerable body of his
horsemen, just as his captain, whose age rendered him unequal to the
combat with so strong and active a youth as Glendinning, lost his sword.*
"Take it up for shame, old Stawarth Bolton," said the English
warden ; " and thou, young man, get you gone to your own friends, and
loiter not here."
Notwithstanding this peremptory order, Halbert Glendinning could not
help stopping to cast a look upon the unfortunate Catherine, who lay
insensible of the danger and of the trampling of so many horses around
her — insensible, as the second glance assured him, of all and for ever.
Glendinning almost rejoiced when he saw that the last misery of life was
over, and that the hoofs of the war-horses, amongst which he was com-
pelled to leave her, could only injure and deface a senseless corpse. He
caught the infant from her arms, half ashamed of the shout of laughter
which rose on all sides, at seeing an armed man in such a situation assume
such an unwonted and inconvenient burden.
"Shoulder your infant!" cried a harquebusier.
" Port your infant ! " said a pikeman.
" Peace, ye brutes ! " said Stawarth Bolton, " and respect humanity in
others, if you have none yourselves. I pardon the lad having done some
discredit to my grey hairs, when I see him take care of that helpless
creature, which ye would have trampled upon as if ye had been littered
of bitch-wolves, not born of women."
The infant thus saved is the heir of Avenel, and the
intricacy and fateful bearing of every incident and word in
the scene, knitting into one central moment all the clues
to the plot of two romances, as the rich boss of a Gothic
vault gathers the shaft mouldings of it, can only be felt by
an entirely attentive reader ; just as (to follow out the like-
ness on Scott's own ground) the willow-wreaths changed
to stone of Melrose tracery1 can only be caught in their
* With ludicrously fatal retouch in the later edition " was deprived
of" his sword.
1 [See above, p. 299.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 381
plighting by the keenest eyes. The meshes are again
gathered by the master's own hand when the child now in
Halbert's arms, twenty years hence, stoops over him to
unlace his helmet,1 as the fallen knight lies senseless on the
field of Carberry Hill.*
112. But there is another, and a still more hidden
method in Scott's designing of story, in which, taking ex-
treme pains, he counts on much sympathy from the reader,
and can assuredly find none in a modern student. The
moral purpose of the whole, which he asserted in the pre-
face to the first edition of Waverley* was involved always
with the minutest study of the effects of true and false
religion on the conduct; — which subject being always
touched with his utmost lightness of hand and stealthiness
of art, and founded on a knowledge of the Scotch char-
acter and the human heart, such as no other living man
possessed, his purpose often escapes first observation as
completely as the inner feelings of living people do ; and
I am myself amazed, as I take any single piece of his
work up for examination, to find how many of its points
I had before missed or disregarded.
113. The groups of personages whose conduct in the
Scott romance is definitely affected by religious conviction
may be arranged broadly, as those of the actual world,
under these following heads : —
(1.) The lowest group consists of persons who, believing
in the general truths of Evangelical religion, accommodate
* Again I am obliged, by review necessity, to omit half the points of
the scene.
1 [See Monastery, ch. xxxvi., and Abbot, ch. xxxvii. ; but the battle is not
Carberry Hill, near Musselburgh, where Lord Home defeated Queen Mary's forces
in 1667, but the battle of Langside, near Glasgow, where Murray defeated them in
1668 : see the last note but one to The Monastery.}
2 [It is not clear what Ruskin had in his mind, as there was no "Preface" to
Waverley until the third edition (1814), and that contains nothing to the point.
The "General Preface" to the collected edition of all the "Waverley Novels" in
1829 has also nothing relevant. Ruskin may refer to chapter i. ("Introductory")
of Waverley, in which Scott avows his intention of "throwing the force of my
narrative upon the characters and passions of the actors : those passions common
to men in all stages of society/']
382 ON THE OLD ROAD
them to their passions, and are capable, by gradual increase
in depravity, of any crime or violence. I am not going
to include these in our present study. Trumbull (Red-
gauntlet), Trusty Tomkyns (Woodstock), Burley (Old Mor-
tality], are three of the principal types.1
(2.) The next rank above these consists of men who
believe firmly and truly enough to be restrained from any
conduct which they clearly recognize as criminal, but whose
natural selfishness renders them incapable of understanding
the morality of the Bible above a certain point ; and whose
imperfect powers of thought leave them liable in many direc-
tions to the warping of self-interest or of small temptations.
Fairservice. Blattergowl. Kettledrummle. Gifted Gil-
fillan.2
(3.) The third order consists of men naturally just and
honest, but with little sympathy and much pride, in whom
their religion, while in the depth of it supporting their best
virtues, brings out on the surface all their worst faults,
and makes them censorious, tiresome, and often fearfully
mischievous.
Richie Moniplies. Davie Deans. Mause Headrigg.3
(4.) The enthusiastic type, leading to missionary effort,
often to martyrdom.
Warden, in Monastery. Colonel Gardiner. Ephraim
Macbriar. Joshua Geddes.4
(5.) Highest type, fulfilling daily duty; always gentle,
entirely firm, the comfort and strength of all around them ;
merciful to every human fault, and submissive without
anger to every human oppression.
1 [For other references to — Tarn Trumbull, see above, p. 346; Burley, Vol. XXIII.
p. 141, and below, p. 386.]
2 [For other references to — Fairservice, see the following pages, and above,
p. 295 ; the Rev. Dr. Blattergowl (Antiquary), above, pp. 307, 325, and below,
p. 390 ; Gabriel Kettledrummle (Old Mortality), Prceterita, ii. § 167 «. ; and Mr.
Gilfillan (Waverley), above, pp. 324. 325, and below, p. 389.]
3 [For other references to — Moniplies, see the following pages ; David Deans
(Heart of Midlothian), below, p. 394 ; and Mause Headrigg (Old Mortality), Proserpina
(Vol. XXV. p. 296) and Prceterita, i. § 71 n.]
* [For other references to Colonel Gardiner (Waverley), see Vol. XVIII. p. 115 n. ;
and to Ephraim Macbriar (Old Mortality), Vol. XXVIII. p. 602 n. For Joshua
Geddes, see Kedgauntlet.}
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 383
Rachel Geddes. Jeanie Deans. Bessie Maclure, in Old
Mortality — the Queen of all.1
114. In the present paper, I ask the reader's patience
only with my fulfilment of a promise long since made,2 to
mark the opposition of the effects of an entirely similar re-
ligious faith in two men of inferior position, representing in
perfect ness the commonest types in Scotland of the second
and third order of religionists here distinguished, Andrew
Fair-service (Rob Roy}, and Richie Moniplies (Nigel).3
The names of both the men imply deceitfulness of
one kind or another — Fairservice, as serving fairly only in
pretence ; Moniplies, as having many windings, turns, and
ways of escape. Scott's names are themselves so Moniplied
that they need as much following out as Shakespeare's ;
and as their roots are pure Scotch, and few people have a
good Scottish glossary beside them, or would use it if they
had, the novels are usually read without any turning of the
first keys to them. I did not myself know till very lately
the root of Dandie Dinmont's name — " Dinmont," a two-
year-old sheep ; still less that of Moniplies, which I had been
always content to take Master George Heriot's rendering of:
" This fellow is not ill-named — he has more plies than one
in his cloak."4 (Nigel, i. 72.) In its first sense, it is the
Scotch word for tripe, Moniplies being a butcher's son.5
115. Cunning, then, they both are, in a high degree —
but Fairservice only for himself; Moniplies for himself and
his friend, or, in grave business, even for his friend first.6
But it is one of Scott's first principles of moral law that
1 [For other references to Jeanie Deans {Heart of Midlothian), Fors Clavigera,
Letter 31 (Vol. XXVII. p. 564, with the other passages there noted), and
Vol. XXXIII. pp. 489, 506; and Bessie Maclure, Vol. XXVIII. p. 602 n.]
2 [See above, § 29, p. 295.]
3 [For other references to Richie, see Vol. XXV. p. 296 ; and to Andrew,
Vol. V. p. 337, Vol. XVII. p. 520, Vol. XXV. p. 296, Vol. XXVIII. p. 603 n.,
and Prceterita, i. § 71 n., iii. § 71 ».]
4 [Compare Proserpina, i. ch. vii. § 9 (Vol. XXV. p. 296).]
6 [Hence (to follow up Scott's " moniplied " name) he describes himself as of
the house of Castle Collop (chap. 31), and at the end of the novel, the king, in
knighting Richie, says, "Surge, carnifex — Rise, Sir Richard Moniplies of Castle
Collop": see § 117, p. 386.]
8 [See the passage quoted on the next page.]
384 ON THE OLD ROAD
cunning never shall succeed, unless definitely employed
against an enemy by a person whose essential character is
wholly frank and true ; as by Roland against Lady Loch-
leven, or Mysie Happer against Dan of the Howlet-hirst ; l
but consistent cunning in the character always fails : Scott
allows no Ulyssean hero.
Therefore the cunning of Fairservice fails always, and
totally ; but that of Moniplies precisely according to the
degree of its selfishness : wholly, in the affair of the petition
— ("I am sure 1 had a' the fright and a' the risk," i. 73 2) —
partially, in that of the carcanet. This he himself at last
recognizes with complacency:—
" I think you might have left me," says Nigel in their parting scene
(i. 286s), "to act according to my own judgment."
" Mickle better not/' answered Richie ; " mickle better not. We are
a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases.
And for me — even myself — I have always observed myself to be much
more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even
in what I have been able to transact for my own interest — whilk last, I
have, indeed, always postponed, as in duty I ought."
" I do believe thou hast," answered Lord Nigel, " having ever found
thee true and faithful."
And his final success is entirely owing to his courage and
fidelity, not to his cunning.
To this subtlety both the men join considerable power
of penetration into the weaknesses of character ; but Fair-
service only sees the surface-failings, and has no respect for
any kind of nobleness ; while Richie watches the gradual
lowering of his master's character and reputation with
earnest sorrow: —
"My lord," said Richie, "to be round with you, the grace of God is
better than gold pieces, and, if they were my last words," he said, raising
his voice, " I would say you are misled, and are forsaking the paths your
honourable father trode in; and what is more, you are going — still under
correction — to the devil with a dishclout, for ye are laughed at by them
that lead you into these disordered by-paths" (i. 282). 4
1 [See The Abbot, chaps, xxxiv., xxxv. ; and The Monastery, ch. xxviii.]
* [Fortunes of Nigel, ch. iv. ; for the affair of the carcanet, see ch. xxxi.]
3 [Ch. xiv. Raskin's references are to Cadell's edition of the Waverley Novels
in 48 volumes.]
4 [Also ch. xiv., earlier in the same scene.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 385
116. In the third place, note that the penetration of
Moniplies, — though, as aforesaid, more into faults than vir-
tues,— being yet founded on the truth of his own nature,
is undeceivable. No rogue can escape him for an instant ;
and he sees through all the machinations of Lord Glen-
varloch's enemies from the first ; while Fairservice, shrewd
enough in detecting the follies of good people, is quite
helpless before knaves, and is deceived three times over by
his own chosen friends — first by the lawyer's clerk, Touthope
(ii. 21), then by the hypocrite MacVittie, and finally by
his true blue Presbyterian friend Lancie.1
In these first elements of character the men are thus
broadly distinguished; but in the next, requiring analysis,
the differences are much more subtle. Both of them have,
in nearly equal degree, the peculiar love of doing or saying
what is provoking, by an exact contrariety to the wishes
of the person they are dealing with, which is a fault in-
herent in the rough side of uneducated Scottish character;
but in Andrew, the habit is checked by his self-interest,
so that it is only behind his master's back that we hear
his opinion of him ; and only when he has lost his temper
that the inherent provocativeness comes out — (see the dark
ride into Scotland).2
On the contrary, Moniplies never speaks but in praise
of his absent master; but exults in mortifying him in direct
colloquy : yet never indulges this amiable disposition except
with a really kind purpose, and entirely knowing what he
is about. Fairservice, on the other hand, gradually falls
into an unconscious fatality of varied blunder and provo-
cation ; and at last causes the entire catastrophe of the
story by bringing in the candles when he has been ordered
to stay downstairs.3
117. We have next to remember that with Scott, Truth
1 [See Bob Roy, chaps, xix. ; xx., xxii. ; and xxxviii.-ix. For Lancie, see below,
p. 392.]
2 [See chaps, xxi. and xviii.]
s [Chap, xxxviii.]
386 ON THE OLD ROAD
and Courage are one. He somewhat overvalued animal
courage — holding it the basis of all other virtue — in his
own words, " Without courage there can be no truth, and
without truth no virtue."1 He would, however, sometimes
allow his villains to possess the basis, without the super-
structure, and thus Rashleigh, Dalgarno, Balfour, Varney,
and other men of that stamp are to be carefully distin-
guished from his erring heroes, Marmion, Bertram, Christie
of the Clinthill, or Nanty Ewart,2 in whom loyalty is always
the real strength of the character, and the faults of life are
owing to temporary passion or evil fate. Scott differs in
this standard of heroism materially from Byron,* in whose
eyes mere courage, with strong affections, are enough for
admiration: while Bertram, and even Marmion, though loyal
to his country, are meant only to be pitied — not honoured.3
But neither Scott nor Byron will ever allow any grain of
mercy to a coward ; and the final difference, therefore, be-
tween Fairservice and Moniplies, which decides their fate in
Scott's hands, is that between their courage and cowardice.
Fairservice is driven out at the kitchen door, never to be
heard of more, while Richie rises into Sir Richie of Castle-
Collop — the reader may perhaps at the moment think by
* I must deeply and earnestly express my thanks to my friend Mr.
Hale White for his vindication of Goethe's real opinion of Byron from
the mangled representation of it by Mr. Matthew Arnold (Contemporary
Review, August 1881).4
1 [See above, p. 226.]
2 [For other references to — Rashleigh Osbaldistone (Rob Roy), see Prceterita, iii.
8 71 J Dalgarno (Fortunes of Nigel), ibid., § 72 ; John Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality),
§ 113 (above, p. 382) ; Richard Varney (Kenilworth), Prceterita, iii. § 71 ; and Nauty
Ewart (Redgauntlet), Fors Clavigera, Letter 47 (Vol. XXVni. p. 192). For other
references to Guy Mannering (Bertram) and The Monastery (Christie of the Clinthill),
see General Index.]
3 [Compare " the shamed falcon of Marmion," Vol. XXXIII. p. 500.]
4 [Mr. Hale White's paper is entitled "Byron, Goethe, and Mr. Matthew Arnold"
(vol. 40, pp. 179-185). Arnold in the Preface to his Selections from Byron
("Golden Treasury Series," 1881) quotes Goethe as saying of Byron, "The moment
he reflects, he is a child." Mr. Hale White, citing the context and comparing
other passages in Goethe's conversations, argues that Arnold's use of the extract
does not correctly represent Goethe's estimate of Byron's "faculty of thought in
its widest sense." See Oxenford's Eckermann Conversations, vol. i. pp. 198, 129,
140, 205, 209, 290, 294 ; also the Stuttgart and Tubingen edition of Goethe, 1840,
vol. xxxiii. pp. 157, 153.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 387
too careless grace on the King's part ; which, indeed, Scott
in some measure meant ; — but the grotesqueness and often
evasiveness of Richie's common manner make us forget
how surely his bitter word is backed by his ready blow,
when need is. His first introduction to us (i. 331), is
because his quick temper overcomes his caution, —
" I thought to mysel', ' Ye are owre mony for me to mell with ; but
let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I could
gar some of ye sing another sang.' Sae, ae auld hirpling deevil of a
potter behoved just to step in my way and offer me a pig, as he said,
just to pit my Scotch ointment in, and / gave him a push, as but natural,
and the tottering deevil couped owre amang his ain pigs, and damaged a
score of them. And then the reird * raise " —
while in the close of the events (ii. 365 2), he wins his
wife by a piece of hand-to-hand fighting, of the value of
which his cool and stern estimate, in answer to the gay
Templar, is one of the great sentences marking Scott's
undercurrent of two feelings about war, in spite of his
love of its heroism.
"Bravo, Richie/' cried Lowestoffe, "why, man, there lies Sin struck
down like an ox, and Iniquity's throat cut like a calf."
"I know not why you should upbraid me with my upbringing, Master
Lowestoffe," answered Richie, with great composure; "but I can tell you,
the shambles is not a bad place for training one to this work."
118. These then being the radical conditions of native
character in the two men, wholly irrespective of their reli-
gious persuasion, we have to note what form their Presby-
terian faith takes in each, and what effect it has on their
consciences.
In Richie, it has little to do; his conscience being, in
* " Reirde, rerde, Anglo-Saxon reord, lingua, sermo, clamour, shouting "
(Douglas glossary).3 No Scottish sentence in the Scott novels should be
passed without examining every word in it ; his dialect, as already noticed,4
being always pure and classic in the highest degree, and his meaning
always the fuller, the further it is traced.
1 [Chapter ii., already quoted, above, p. 300.]
2 Chapter xxxvii.]
3 'For other references to the glossary appended in 1710 to Bishop Gavin
Douglas's Virgil, see above, p. 300 and n.]
4 [See above, § 32, p. 297.]
xxxiv. 2 B
388 ON THE OLD ROAD
the deep of it, frank and clear. His religion commands
him nothing which he is not at once ready to do, or has
not habitually done ; and it forbids him nothing which he
is unwilling to forego. He pleads no pardon from it for
known faults ; he seeks no evasions in the letter of it for
violations of its spirit. We are scarcely therefore aware of
its vital power in him, unless at moments of very grave
feeling and its necessary expression : —
"Wherefore, as the letter will not avail you with him to whom it is
directed, you may believe that Heaven hath sent it to me, who have a
special regard for the writer — have besides, as much mercy and honesty
within me as man can weel male' his bread with, and am willing to aid
any distressed creature, that is my friend's friend." 1
So, again, in the deep feeling which rebukes his master's
careless ruin of the poor apprentice —
c: I say, then, as I am a true man, when I saw that puir creature
come through the ha' at that ordinary, whilk is accurst (Heaven forgive
me for swearing) of God and man, with his teeth set, and his hands
clenched, and his bonnet drawn over his brows ..." He stopped a
moment, and looked fixedly in his master's face.2
— and again in saving the poor lad himself when he takes
the street to his last destruction "with burning heart and
bloodshot eye": —
" Why do you stop my way ? " he said fiercely.
" Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin," said Richie. " Nay, never
start about it, man ; you see you are known. Alack-a-day ! that an honest
man's son should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name."
"I pray you in good fashion to let me go," said Jenkin. "I am in
the humour to be dangerous to myself, or to any one."
"I will abide the risk," said the Scot, "if you will but come with
me. You are the very lad in the world whom I most wished to meet." *
* The reader must observe that in quoting Scott for illustration of
particular points I am obliged sometimes to alter the succession and omit
much of the context of the pieces I want, for Scott never lets you see
his hand, nor get at his points without remembering and comparing far-
away pieces carefully. To collect the evidence of any one phase of char-
acter, is like pulling up the detached roots of a creeper.
1 [Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxvi.]
* [Chapter xiv., in the scene where Richie parts from Nigel]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 389
"And you," answered Vincent, "or any of your beggarly countrymen, are
the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair and false."
" As to our poverty, friend," replied Richie, " that is as Heaven pleases ;
but touching our falsity, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal
and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in an English doublet"1
119. In these, and other such passages, it will be felt
that I have done Richie some injustice in classing him
among the religionists who have little sympathy ! For all
real distress, his compassion is instant ; but his doctrinal
religion becomes immediately to him a cause of failure in
charity :—
"Yon divine has another air from powerful Master Rollock, and Mess
David Black of North Leith, and sic like. Alack-a-day, wha can ken, if
it please your lordship, whether sic prayers as the Southrons read out of
their auld blethering black mess-book there, may not be as powerful to
invite fiends, as a right red-het prayer warm from the heart may be power-
ful to drive them away ; even as the evil spirit was driven by the smell of
the fish's liver from the bridal chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel ! " 2
The scene in which this speech occurs is one of Scott's
most finished pieces, showing with supreme art how far the
weakness of Richie's superstitious formality is increased by
his being at the time partially drunk !
It is on the other hand to be noted to his credit, for
an earnest and searching Bible-reader, that he quotes the
Apocrypha. Not so gifted Gilfillan, —
" But if your honour wad consider the case of Tobit ! "
" Tobit ! " exclaimed Gilfillan with great heat ; " Tobit and his dog
baith are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist
or a papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en
in you, friend."3
Gilfillan and Fairservice are exactly alike, and both are
distinguished from Moniplies in their scornfully exclusive
dogmatism, which is indeed the distinctive plague-spot of
the lower evangelical sect everywhere, and the worst blight
of the narrow natures, capable of its zealous profession.
1 [All from ch. xxxv. Iluskiu, however, somewhat rearranges the passages, and
11 ow and again anglicizes the Scottish dialect]
3 [Chapter vii.J
1 [ Waver/ey, ch. xxxvi. ; for Gilfillan, see above, p. 382.]
390 ON THE OLD ROAD
In Blattergowl, on the contrary, as his name implies, the
doctrinal teaching has become mere Blather, Blatter, or
patter — a string of commonplaces spoken habitually in per-
formance of his clerical function, but with no personal or
sectarian interest in them on his part.
" He said fine things on the duty o' resignation to
the will of God — that did he " ; x but his own mind is
fixed under ordinary circumstances only on the income
and privilege of his position. Scott however indicates this
without severity as one of the weaknesses of an established
church, to the general principle of which, as to all other
established and monarchic law, he is wholly submissive,
and usually affectionate (see the description of Colonel
Mannering's Edinburgh Sunday2), so that Blattergowl, out
of the pulpit, does not fail in his serious pastoral duty, but
gives real comfort by his presence and exhortation in the
cottage of the Mucklebackits.3
On the other hand, to all kinds of Independents and
Nonconformists (unless of the Roderick Dhu* type) Scott is
adverse with all his powers ; and accordingly, Andrew and
Gilfillan are much more sternly and scornfully drawn than
Blattergowl.
120. In all the three, however, the reader must not for
an instant suspect what is commonly called "hypocrisy."6
Their religion is no assumed mask or advanced pretence.
It is in all a confirmed and intimate faith, mischievous by
its error, in proportion to its sincerity (compare Ariadne
Florentina, page 75,6 paragraph 87), and although by his
cowardice, petty larceny,* and low cunning, Fairservice is
* Note the " wee business of my ain/' i. 213. 7
1 [Antiquary, ch. ix. (Miss Oldbuck to her brother) ; for example of " his mind
fixed only on the income and privilege of his position/' see ch. xix.]
* j Chapter xxxvii. Hence Ruskiu's remark above, p. 346.]
3 Antiquary, ch. xxxi.]
* [For other references to whom, see Vol. XXVII. pp. 261, 629.]
6 Compare above, p. 361 n.]
* In ed. 1 : see now Vol. XXII. p. 354.]
7 [See Rob Roy, ch. xiv., for the "wee bit business o' my ain" concerning some pears
"that will never be missed" which Andrew was selling to a friend. Ruskin's reference
is to the 48 vol. edition of the Waverley Novels already mentioned (above, p. 384 n.).]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 391
absolutely separated into a different class of men from
Moniplies — in his fixed religious principle and primary con-
ception of moral conduct, he is exactly like him. Thus
when, in an agony of terror, he speaks for once to his
master with entire sincerity, one might for a moment think
it was a lecture by Moniplies to Nigel :—
" O, Maister Frank, a' your uncle's follies and a' your cousins' pliskies,
were nothing to this ! Drink clean cap-out, like Sir Hildebrand ; begin
the blessed morning with brandy-sops like Squire Percy ; swagger like
Squire Thorncliffe ; rin wud among the lasses like Squire John ; gamble like
Richard ; win souls to the Pope and the deevil, like Rashleigh ; rive, rant,
break the Sabbath, and do the Pope's bidding, like them a' put thegither
— but merciful Providence ! tak' care o' your young bluid, and gang nae
near Rob Roy,"1 —
I said, one might for a moment think it was a Moniplies'
lecture to Nigel. But not for two moments, if we indeed
can think at all. We could not find a passage more con-
centrated in expression of Andrew's total character ; nor
more characteristic of Scott in the calculated precision and
deliberate appliance of every word.
121. Observe first, Richie's rebuke, quoted above,2 fastens
Nigel's mind instantly on the nobleness of his father. But
Andrew's to Frank fastens as instantly on the follies of his
uncle and cousins.
Secondly, the sum of Andrew's lesson is — "do anything
that is rascally, if only you save your skin." But Richie's
is summed in "the grace of God is better than gold
pieces." 3
Thirdly, Richie takes little note of creeds, except when
he is drunk,4 but looks to conduct always ; while Andrew
clinches his catalogue of wrong with " doing the Pope's
bidding" and Sabbath-breaking; these definitions of the
unpardonable being the worst absurdity of all Scotch
wickedness to this hour — everything being forgiven to
people who go to church on Sunday, and curse the Pope.
3
'Rob Roy, ch. xxix.l
'See § 115 ; p. 384. J
_See again, above, p. 384.1
"Fortunes of Nigel, ch. vii.J
392 ON THE OLD ROAD
Scott never loses sight of this marvellous plague-spot of
Presbyterian religion, and the last words of Andrew Fair-
service are : —
" The villain Lancie ! to betray an auld friend that sang aff the same
psalm-book wi' him every Sabbath for twenty years," x
and the tragedy of these last words of his, and of his ex-
pulsion from his former happy home — "a jargonelle pear-
tree at one end of the cottage, a rivulet and flower plot of
a rood in extent in front, a kitchen garden behind, and
a paddock for a cow" (viii. 6, of the 1830 edition2) can
only be understood by the reading of the chapter he quotes
on that last Sabbath evening he passes in it — the 5th of
Nehemiah.3
122. For — and I must again and again point out this
to the modern reader, who, living in a world of affectation,
suspects "hypocrisy" in every creature he sees — the very
plague of this lower evangelical piety is that it is not
hypocrisy ; that Andrew and Lancie do both expect to get
the grace of God by singing psalms on Sunday, whatever
rascality they practise during the week. In the modern
popular drama of School,** the only religious figure is
a dirty and malicious usher who appears first reading
Hervey's Meditations? and throws away the book as soon
* Its " hero " is a tall youth with handsome calves to his legs, who
shoots a bull with a fowling-piece, eats a large lunch, thinks it witty to
call Othello a "nigger," and, having nothing to live on, and being capable
of doing nothing for his living, establishes himself in lunches and cigars
for ever, by marrying a girl with a fortune. The heroine is an amiable
governess, who, for the general encouragement of virtue in governesses, is
rewarded by marrying a lord.
1 [See ch. xxxix. ; but these are not quite his last words, as two other speeches
follow.]
* [That is, vol. viii. (containing Rob Roy, vol. ii.) of the edition noted above,
p. 384 n. See ch. xviii.]
8 [See, again, ch. xviii. He does not actually quote the chapter, but says that
he has "just finished the fifth chapter of Nehemiah."]
* [By T. W. Robertson (1829-1871), author of Society, Ours, Caste, and other
plays. School was first produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in 1869.]
8 [The Meditations among the Tombs of James Hervey (1714-1758), at one time
much admired ; ridiculed by Dr. Johnson.]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL— V 893
as he is out of sight of the company. But when Andrew
is found by Frank "perched up like a statue by a range
of beehives in an attitude of devout contemplation," with
" one eye watching the motions of the little irritable citizens,
and the other fixed on a book of devotion,"1 you will please
observe, suspicious reader, that the devout gardener has no
expectation whatever of Frank's approach, nor has he any
design upon him, nor is he reading or attitudinising for
effect of any kind on any person. He is following his own
ordinary customs, and his book of devotion has been already
so well used that "much attrition had deprived it of its
corners, and worn it into an oval shape " ; its attractiveness
to Andrew being twofold — the first, that it contains doctrine
to his mind ; the second, that such sound doctrine is set
forth under figures properly belonging to his craft. " I was
e'en taking a spell o' worthy Mess John Quackleben's
Flower of a Sweet Savour sawn on the Middenstead of this
World" (note in passing Scott's easy, instant, exquisite
invention of the name of author and title of book) ; and it
is a question of very curious interest how far these sweet
" spells " in Quackleben, and the like religious exercises of
a nature compatible with worldly business (compare Luckie
Macleary, " with eyes employed on Boston's Crook in the
Lot, while her ideas were engaged in summing up the
reckoning" — Waverley, i. 1122) — do indeed modify in Scot-
land the national character for the better or the worse ; or,
not materially altering, do at least solemnize and confirm
it in what good it may be capable of. My own Scottish
nurse described in Fors Clavigera for April, 1873, page 13,3
would, I doubt not, have been as faithful and affectionate
without her little library of Puritan theology ; nor were
her minor faults, so far as I could see, abated by its
exhortations ; but I cannot but believe that her uncom-
plaining endurance of most painful disease, and steadiness
1 [Chapter xvii. of Rob RoyJ\
* [See ch. xi.]
* [In ed. 1 ; Letter 28 : see iiow Vol. XXVII. p. 517.]
394 ON THE OLD ROAD
of temper under not unfrequent misapprehension by those
whom she best loved and served, were in great degree
aided by so much of Christian faith and hope as she had
succeeded in obtaining, with little talk about it.
123. I knew however in my earlier days a right old
Covenanter in my Scottish aunt's house,1 of whom, with
Mause Headrigg and David Deans, I may be able perhaps
to speak further in my next paper.2 But I can only now
write carefully of what bears on my immediate work: and
must ask the reader's indulgence for the hasty throwing
together of materials intended, before my illness last spring,
to have been far more thoroughly handled. The friends
who are fearful for my reputation as an •' e'en vain " will
perhaps kindly recollect that a sentence of Modern Painters
was often written four or five times over in my own hand,
and tried in every word for perhaps an hour — perhaps a
forenoon — before it was passed for the printer.3 I rarely
now fix my mind on a sentence, or a thought, for five
minutes in the quiet of morning, but a telegram comes
announcing that somebody or other will do themselves the
pleasure of calling at eleven o'clock, and that there's two
shillings to pay.
1 [See Preeterita, i. § 71. For other references to Mause Headrigg (Old Mor-
tality) and David Deans (Heart of Midlothian), see above, p. 382.]
2 [The present paper was, however, the last. The following words were added
by Ruskin in his final revise.]
3 [Compare Ariadne Florentina, § 2 (Vol. XXII. p. 302).]
APPENDIX
SOUTHEY AND BYRON
[Among the MS. of Fiction, Fair and Foul (see above, p. xxxv.) are some pages
headed "Begins completed work, from last Paper." These were not included in
the Papers in the Nineteenth Century. The passage is now added, as it deals more
fully with a poem of Southey referred to above (§ 77, p. 346), and with some
lines of Byron quoted with special commendation (§ 63, p. 333).]
You have first to ask of all poetry, Is it good song, to begin with ; had
the man who put it together an ear to his head, a measure in his mind ?
is there true music in him ? is there true symmetry ?
I take up, for example nearest my hand, a bit of verse which it is almost
certain nowadays that every holiday tourist to the English lakes will have
the privilege of reading, and, if of a conscientious turn of mind, will think
it his duty to read — Mr. Southey's description of the Fall of Lodore.
I find that Mr. Southey opens it with the remark that "Here it comes
sparkling," and I find also by the context that Mr. Southey supposes this
observation to be metrical, and even to be equivalent to the proper dactyl
and troche dimeter of " Little Jack — Horner — sat in the — corner." * But
Little Jack was written by a bard who had song in him ; whereas I farther
perceive that Mr. Southey, using " Here it comes " for a dactyl in one
line, to be answered by "There it lies" in the next, is animated by no
Muse, nor Musaean spirit, but only by a wildly blundering itch for clatter;
which, proceeding to tell us that the cataract
" In this rapid race
On which it is bent
[It] reaches the place
Of its steep descent,"
and collecting on that occasion every jingling word that can be gathered
out of the dictionary, shakes them all out as a scullery-maid her dust-
pan, achieving a series of diabolic discords, almost prophetic of the future
arrival of the railway train and the subsequent clatter of the knives and
forks at the Keswick table d'hote, with which the verses in question are
hereafter for ever to be accompanied. But read a line or two farther for
the sake of feeling what the false gallop of verse is in its extremity :
" The cataract strong
Then plunges along, . . .
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding, . . .
And dinning aud spinning
And dropping and hopping," etc., etc.
1 [For another reference to the nursery rhyme, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 310.]
395
396 ON THE OLD ROAD
While every girl and boy of our young English travellers (such the
will of popular education) must have this piece of disgrace to their lan-
guage and landscape nailed into their tender memories, — how many of
them — how many even of our present scholars, know this, — the loveliest
description of a shore waterfall, probably in European literature ?
[Here follow the ten lines from Byron's Island, quoted above, p. 333 ;
the last line — " Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell" — beiug underlined.]
I have italicised the last line; one of those which can never be sur-
passed, never superseded ; which are reached only in the perfect use of a
great nation's language at its utmost power.
Now, observe, the perfectness of this metrical skill in this group of
lines is shown by their reserves and irregularities, just as much as by their
melodies. Byron will not put out his whole force till the last line, and for
the noblest piece of his subject ; restricting and partly thwarting the
measure at first, he gives his closing diapason with the ease of one of
those Atlantic waves itself. But through all the restriction his every word
tells, in thought and accent together.
I know in a moment by his first couplet that he has watched the course
of high waterfalls, and felt how their lost and far-thrown or far-wafted
spray gathers itself, as if by half paralysed effort, together in tricklets here
and runlets there, and " straggles" — (the sense of straggling touched as it
were at the edge of the word) — on " as it may " : — no channel for it now,
but channel to be found from where it fell.
"Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray." The line breaks just as
the stream does. Pope would have bounded or swung regularly to the
end of his pentametre — "Its bounding crystal caught a livelier ray," or
the like. But Byron breaks the cadence at its mid-instant and the line
itself frolics — in cascade : —
' ' Yet as pure
And fresh as innocence — arid more secure."
He cares for innocence, then, and fears for it, this immoral person.
"As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep." — Forced, this, you think?
Well — yes; but forced by concentration. He has more in his mind than
he can possibly get said — chiefly, the personification of the stream as a
joyful and pure creature, that " down the rocks can leap along," * like
maid or chamois ; and with this, the remembrance coming to him of the
far-away star-like light of the flash of a cascade among really high moun-
tains, seen as motionless. And I know at the glance from this line that
he has been among high mountains, that he has seen chamois, that he
has seen mountain-maids like Lduisa, and that he cares for and loves
them all, in their perfect life and purity — this immoral person. And he
carries me back to many a glade, dashed with streamlet-dew, among the
high pines; — but chiefly of all to a little hill garden above Lucerne where,
after we had been (one of my chief friends with me) all day among
somewhat rough Swiss peasants, suddenly a tame fawn met us, — and at the
1 [See Wordsworth's Louisa, who "down the rocks can leap along Like rivulets
in May."]
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL 397
same instant we both called out the name of a young Irish girl — so deeply,
so tenderly it was the image of her.
Observe finally, — with all this lovely investing light of feeling, Byron
never loses sight of the absolute fact. What qualities are in the stream
like girl or fawn, he sees intensely ; he never forgets that it is but a
stream after all. He will by no means let it change into a White Lady x
or an Undine ; nor shall it speak for itself, like the Talking Oak, or
talking rivulet. What it is, he perfectly feels, perfectly shows — no more.
And in like manner what everything Is. He is the truest, the sternest,
Seer of the Nineteenth Century. No imagination dazzles him, no terror
daunts, and no interest betrays.
SHELLEY AND BYRON
[In some notes in his diary (September 22, 1881) — "for opening of next paper
in 19th Century" — Ruskin had thought of comparing the same lines of Byron with
Shelley's Sensitive Plant (for which, see also Vol. I. p. 158 ; Vol. II. p. 28 ; Vol. IV.
pp. 150, 379; and Preeterita, i. § 210). J
TAKE the verses already given of Byron for perfect — explaining about the
" shy chamois' eye " (the sentinel-chamois) and my sight of the three flocks
of them under Aiguille d'Argentiere (Argentiere — why ? any silver ever
found there ?) — then, with the perfectly true, perfectly rhythmic Byron, com-
pare Shelley's false, forced, foul
"A sensitive plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew ! "
Sensitive plants can't grow in gardens ! 2 Winds don't bring dew, but only
dead quiet can. Dew with a breeze is impossible. (The blockhead — and
he thinks himself wiser than God, though he doesn't know the commonest
law of evaporation!) Winds — why young? why old? and when old? Dew
— why of silver ? (why not of copper, if the mammon sun shines on it).
Compare for opposition the blessed Dew of the Morning by Richter, just
got. from Gennany, to be sent to Whitelands.3 Then the bad rhythm —
"A sen- | sitive plant | in a gar- | den grew,
And the young | winds fed] it with sil- | ver dew"-
cotildn't well be more chopped up or unmusical. Next conf.
"And agarics | and fungi | with mil- j dew and mould
Started | like mist from | the wet | ground cold."
(Here the notes break off.)
1 [As by Scott in The Monastery (see above, p. 347) ; for other references to
Tennyson's "talking rivulet" (The Brook), see Vol. XXVII. p. 325 n., and General
Index.]
2 [But Shelley was writing of an Italian garden, at Pisa: see Dowden's Life,
vol. ii. p. 318 n.J
3 [See Ruskin s note on this design by Ludwig Richter in his Catalogue of
the Ruskin Cabinet at Whitelands College : Vol. XXX. p. 349.]
10
USURY :
A REPLY AND A REJOINDER
(1880)
[Bibliographical Note. — In Fors Clavigera Ruskin challenged the Bishop of
Manchester (at that time Dr. Eraser) to state his views on usury : see
Vol. XXVIH. p. 243, and Vol. XXIX. p. 243.
This challenge was incidentally referred to in one of the Letters on the
Lord? s Prayer and the Church printed in the Contemporary Review, December
1879 (see above, p. 204). The Bishop, having seen this reference, wrote
forthwith to Ruskin, who published his letter with a Rejoinder.
The first publication was in the Contemporary Review, February 1880,
vol. 37, pp. 316-333. For a comic misprint, see below, p. 403 n.
The "Reply and Rejoinder" were reprinted in On the Old Road, 1885,
vol. ii. pp. 202-238 (§§ 148-175) ; and again in the second edition of that
book, 1899, vol. iii. pp. 206-244 (§§ 148-175). The sections have here
been renumbered. Passages in § 21, hitherto printed in full-sized type,
are now put in smaller print, as they are textual quotations. On p. 419,
line 11 from the bottom, "hunting-grounds" has hitherto been misprinted
ee meeting-grounds."]
USURY :
A REPLY AND A REJOINDER
1. I HAVE been honoured by the receipt of a letter from
the Bishop of Manchester, which, with his Lordship's per-
mission, I have requested the editor of the Contemporary
Review to place before the large circle of his readers, with a
brief accompanying statement of the circumstances by which
the letter has been called forth, and such imperfect reply
as it is in my power without delay to render.
J. RUSKIN.
MANCHESTER, December 8, 1879.
DEAR SIR, — In a letter from yourself to the Rev. F. A. Malleson,1
published in the Contemporary Review of the current month, I observe the
following passage : " I have never yet heard so much as one (preacher)
heartily proclaiming against all those 'deceivers with vain words/ that no
' covetous person, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the King-
dom of Christ and of God ' ; and on myself personally and publicly chal-
lenging the Bishops of England generally, and by name the Bishop of
Manchester, to say whether usury was, or was not, according to the will
of God, I have received no answer from any one of them." I confess,
for myself, that until I saw this passage in print a few days ago, I was
unaware of the existence of such challenge, and therefore I could not
answer it. It appears to have been delivered (A) 2 in No. 82 of a series
of letters 8 which, under the title of Fors Clavigera, you have for some
time been addressing to the working classes of England, but which, from
the peculiar mode of their publication, are not easily accessible to the
general reader and which I have only caught a glimpse of, on the library-
table of the Athenaeum Club, on the rare occasions when I am able to
use my privileges as a member of that Society. I have no idea why I
had the honour of being specially mentioned by name (u) ; but I beg to
assure you that my silence did not arise from any discourtesy towards my
challenger, nor from that discretion which, some people may think, is
1 [See above, p. 204.]
' [The letters A, B, etc., inserted by Ruskin, refer to his comments below.]
* [See Vol. XXIX. pp. 243-244.]
401
402 ON THE OLD ROAD
usually the better part of episcopal valour, and which consists in ignor-
ing inconvenient questions from a sense of inability to answer them ; but
simply from the fact that I was not conscious that your lance had touched
my shield.
The question you have asked is just one of those to which Aristotle's
wise caution applies : " We must distinguish and define such words, if we
would know how far, and in what sense, the opposite views are true "
(Eth. Nic., ix. c. viii. § 3). What do you mean by " usury " ? (c) Do you
comprehend under it any payment of money as interest for the use of
borrowed capital ? or only exorbitant, inequitable, grinding interest, such
as the money-lender, Fufidius, extorted ?
" Quinas hie capiti mercedes exsecat, atque
Quanto perditior quisque est, taiito acrius urget :
Nomina sectatur modo sumta veste virili
Sub patribus duris tironum. Maxime, quis non,
Jupiter, exclamat, simul atque audivit? '
— Hor. Sat, i. 2, 14-18.
Usury, in itself, is a purely neutral word, carrying with it, in its
primary meaning, neither praise nor blame ; and a " usurer " is defined in
our dictionaries as "a person accustomed to lend money and take interest
for it" — which is the ordinary function of a banker, without whose help
great commercial undertakings could not be carried out ; though it is
obvious how easily the word may pass into a term of reproach, so that to
have been "called a usurer" was one of the bitter memories that rankled
most in Shylock's catalogue of his wrongs.
I do not believe that anything has done more harm to the practical
efficacy of religious sanctions than the extravagant attempts that are fre-
quently made to impose them in cases which they never originally con-
templated, or to read into " ordinances," evidently " imposed for a time "
— 8iKat,iafj.o.Ta p.fXPl faipov (Heb. ix. JO) — a law of eternal and immutable
obligation. Just as we are told (D) not to expect to find in the Bible a
scheme of physical science, so I do not expect to find there a scheme of
political economy. What I do expect to find, in relation to my duty to
my neighbour, are those unalterable principles of equity, fairness, truthful-
ness, honesty (E), which are the indispensable bases of civil society. I am
sure I have no need to remind you that, while a Jew was forbidden
by his law to take usury — i.e., interest for the loan of money — from his
brother, if he were waxen poor and fallen into decay with him, and this
generous provision was extended even to strangers and sojourners in the
land (Lev. xxv. 35-38), and the interesting story in Nehemiah (v. 1-13),
tells us how this principle was recognized in the latest days of the
commonwealth — still in that old law there is no denunciation of usury in
general, and it was expressly permitted in the case of ordinary strangers *
(Deut. xxiii. 20).
* In Proverbs xxviii. 8, "usury" is coupled with "unjust gain," and a
pitiless spirit towards the poor, which shows in what sense the word is to
be understood there, and in such other passages as Ps. xv. 5 and Ezek.
xviii. 8, 9-
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 403
It seems to me plain also that our Blessed Lord's precept about
"lending, hoping for nothing again" (Luke vi. 35), has the same, or a
similar, class of circumstances in view, and was intended simply to govern
a Christian man's conduct to the poor and needy, and "such as have no
helper," and cannot, without a violent twist (F), be construed into a general
law determining for ever and in all cases the legitimate use of capital.
Indeed, on another occasion, and in a very memorable parable, the great
Founder of Christianity recognizes, and impliedly sanctions, the practice of
lending money at interest. " Thou oughtest," says the master, address-
ing his unprofitable servant, " thou oughtest " — eSei are — " to have put my
money to the exchangers ; and then, at my coming, I should have received
mine own with usury."
St. Paul, no doubt, denounces the covetous. (o) But who is the
IT \eoveKTfjs ? Not the man who may happen to have money out on loan
at a fair rate of interest; but, as Liddell and Scott give the meaning
of the word, " one who has or claims more than his share ; hence, greedy,
grasping, selfish." Of such men, whose affections are wholly set on things
of the earth, and who are not very scrupulous how they gratify them, it
may, perhaps, not improperly be said (H) that they "have no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and of God." But here, again, it would be a
manifest " wresting " of the words to make them apply to a case which
we have no proof that the Apostle had in contemplation when he uttered
them. Rapacity, greed of gain, harsh and oppressive dealing, taking unfair
advantage of our own superior knowledge and another's ignorance, shutting
up the bowels of compassion towards a brother who we see has need — all
these and the like things are forbidden by the very spirit of Christianity,
and are manifestly " not according to the will of God," for they are all of
them forms of injustice or wrong. But money may be lent at interest with-
out one of these bad passions being brought into play, and in these cases
I confess my inability to see where, either in terms or in spirit, such use
of money is condemned either by the Christian code of charity, or by
that natural law of conscience which we are told (i) is written on the
hearts of men.
Let me take two or three simple instances by way of illustration. The
following has happened to myself. All my life through — from the time
when my income was not a tenth part of what it is now — I have felt it a
duty, while endeavouring to discharge all proper claims, to live within that
income, so to adjust my expenditure to it that there should be a margin on
the right side. This margin, of course, accumulated, and reached in time,
say, £1000. Just then, say, the London and North-Western Railway Com-
pany proposed to issue Debenture Stock, bearing four per cent, interest,
for the purpose of extending the communications,1 and so increasing the
wealth, of the country. Whom in the world am I injuring — what conceiv-
able wrong am I doing — where or how am I thwarting " the Will of God "
— if I let the Company have my £1000, and have been receiving from
them £40 a year for the use of it ever since? Unless the money had
been forthcoming from some quarter or other, a work which was absolutely
1 [In the Contemporary Review, "extending the communications" was misprinted
" excommunications."]
xxxiv. 2 c
404 ON THE OLD ROAD
necessary for the prosperity of the nation, and which finds remunerative
employment (K) for an immense number of Englishmen, enabling them to
bring up their families in respectability and comfort, would never have
been accomplished. Will you tell me that this method of carrying out
great commercial enterprises, sanctioned by experience (L) as the most, if
not the only, practicable one, is ' ' not according to the Will of God " ?
Take another instance. In Lancashire a large number of cotton mills
have been erected on the joint-stock principle with limited liability. The
thing has been pushed too far probably, and at one time there was a good
deal of unwholesome speculation in floating companies. But that is not
the question before us ; and the enterprises gave working men an oppor-
tunity of investing their savings, which was a great stimulus to thrift, and,
so far, an advantage to the country. In a mill, which it would perhaps
cost .£50,000 to build and fit with machinery, the subscribed capital, which
would be entitled to a division of profits after all other demands had been
satisfied, would not amount probably to more than ,£20,000. The rest
would be borrowed at rates of interest varying according to the conditions
of the market. You surely would not maintain that those who lent their
money for such a purpose, and were content with 5 or 6 per cent, for
the use of it, thus enabling, in good times, the shareholders to realize 20
or 25 per cent, on their subscribed capital, were doing wrong either to
the shareholders or any one else, or could in any sense be charged with
acting "not according to the will of God"?
Take yet one case more. A farmer asks his landlord to drain his
land. " Gladly," says his squire, " if you will pay me five per cent, on
the outlay." In other words, " if you will let me share the increased
profits to this extent." The bargain is agreeable to both sides; the pro-
ductiveness of the land is largely increased ; who is wronged ? Surely
such a transaction could not fairly be described as " not according to the
will of God " ; surely, unless the commerce and productive industries of
the country are to be destroyed, and, with the destruction, its population
is to be reduced to what it was in the days of Elizabeth, these and similar
transactions — which can be kept entirely clear of the sin of covetousness,
and rest upon the well-understood basis of mutual advantage, each and
all being gainers by them — are not only legitimate, but inevitable (M).
And now that I have taken up your challenge, and, so far as my ability
goes, answered it, may I, without staying to inquire how far your charge
against the clergy can be substantiated, that they " generally patronize and
encourage all the iniquity of the world by steadily preaching away the
penalties of it " J (N), be at least allowed to demur to your wholesale
denunciation of the great cities of the earth, which you say " have become
loathsome centres of fornication and covetousness, the smoke of their sin
going up into the face of Heaven, like the furnace of Sodom, and the
pollution of it rotting and raging through the bones and souls of the
peasant people round them, as if they were each a volcano, whose ashes
brake out in blains upon man and beast." 2 Surely, Sir, your righteous
1 [This is a quotation from Ruskin's eighth letter on The Lord's Prayer: see
above, p. 205.]
2 [See again above, p. 205.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 405
indignation at evil has caused you to overcharge your language. No one
can have lived in a great city, as I have for the last ten years, without
being aware of its sins and its pollutions. But unless you can prevent the
aggregation of human beings into great cities, these are evils which must
necessarily exist ; at any rate, which always have existed. The great cities
of to-day are not worse than great cities always have been (o). In one
capital respect, I believe they are better. There is an increasing number
of their citizens who are aware of these evils, and who are trying their
best, with the help of God, to remedy them. In Sodom there was but
one righteous man who " vexed his soul " at the unlawful deeds that he
witnessed day by day, on every side ; and he, apparently, did no more
than vex his soul. In Manchester, the men and women, of all ranks and
persuasions, who are actively engaged in some Christian or philanthropic
work, to battle against these gigantic evils, are to be reckoned by hundreds.
Nowhere have I seen more conspicuous instances of Christian effort, and of
single-hearted devotion to the highest interests of mankind. And though,
no doubt, if these efforts were better organized, more might be achieved,
and elements, which one could wish absent, sometimes mingle with and
mar the work, still, a great city, even "with the smoke of its sin going
up into the face of Heaven," is the noblest field of the noblest virtues,
because it gives the amplest scope for the most varied exercise of them.
If you will teach us clergy how better to discharge our office as
ministers of a Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness, we shall all owe you
a deep debt of gratitude ; l which no one will be more forward to acknow-
ledge than, my dear Sir, yours faithfully and with much respect,
J. MANCHESTER.
JOHN RUSKIN, ESQ.
2. The foregoing letter, to which I would fain have
given my undivided and unwearied attention, reached my
hands, as will be seen by its date, only in the close of
the year, when my general correspondence always far over-
passes my powers of dealing with it, and my strength—
such as now is left me — had been spent, nearly to lowest
ebb, in totally unexpected business arising out of the
threatened mischief at Venice.2 But I am content that
such fragmentary reply as, under this pressure, has been
possible to me, should close the debate as far as I am
myself concerned. The question at issue is not one of
private interpretation ; and the interests concerned are too
vast to allow its decision to be long delayed.
1 [For Ruskiu's note on this passage, see § 23 (p. 421).]
* [in connexion with the "restoration" of St. Mark's: see Vol. XXIV.
pp. 412-424.]
406 ON THE OLD ROAD
The Bishop will, I trust, not attribute to disrespect the
mode of reply in the form of notes attached to special
passages, indicated by inserted letters, which was adopted
in Fors Clavigera in all cases of important correspondence,1
as more clearly defining the several points under debate.
3. (A) " The challenge appears to have been delivered."
May I respectfully express my regret that your lordship
should not have read the letter you have honoured me
by answering? The number of Fors referred to does not
deliver — it only reiterates — the challenge given in the Fors
for January 1st, 1875, with reference to the prayer " Have
mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, and so
fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they
may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites,"
in these following terms : —
" Who are the true Israelites, my Lord of Manchester, on your Exchange ?
Do they stretch their cloth, like other people ? — have they any underhand
dealings with the liable-to-be-damned false Israelites — Rothschilds and the
like? or are they duly solicitous about those wanderers' souls? and how
often, on the average, do your Manchester clergy preach from the delicious
parable, savouriest of all Scripture to rogues (at least since the eleventh
century, when I find it to have been specially headed with golden title
in my best Greek MS.) of the Pharisee and Publican, — and how often,
on the average, from those objectionable First and Fifteenth Psalms ? " 2
4. (B) " I have no idea why I had the honour of being
specially mentioned by name." By diocese, my Lord ; not
name,3 please observe ; and for this very simple reason : that
I have already fairly accurate knowledge of the divinity of
the old schools of Canterbury, York, and Oxford ; but I
looked to your Lordship as the authoritative exponent of the
more advanced divinity of the school of Manchester, with
which I am not yet familiar.
5. (c) " What do you mean by usury ? " What / mean
1 [See, for instance, the correspondence with Mr. Frederic Harrison iu Letter 67
(Vol. XXVHI. pp. 662-664).]
* [Letter 49 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 243).]
3 [See above, p. 204 n.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 407
by that word, my Lord, is surely of no consequence to any
one but my few readers, and fewer disciples. What David
and his Son meant by it I have prayed your Lordship to
tell your flock, in the name of the Church which dictates
daily to them the songs of the one,1 and professes to inter-
pret to them the commands of the other.
And although I can easily conceive that a Bishop at
the court of the Third Richard might have paused in
reply to a too curious layman's question of what was
meant by " Murder " ; and can also conceive a Bishop
at the court of the Second Charles hesitating as to the
significance of the word " Adultery " ; and farther, in the
present climacteric of the British Constitution, an elder of
the Church of Glasgow debating within himself whether
the Commandment which was severely prohibitory of Theft
might not be mildly permissive of Misappropriation ; 2 — at
no time, nor under any conditions, can I conceive any
question existing as to the meaning of the words TO/CO?,
fcenus, usura, or usury : and I trust that your Lordship
will at once acquit me of wishing to attach any other
significance to the word than that which it was to the
full intended to convey on every occasion of its use by
Moses, by David, by Christ, and by the Doctors of the
Christian Church, down to the seventeenth century.
Nor, even since that date, although the commercial
phrase " interest " has been adopted in order to distinguish
an open and unoppressive rate of usury from a surrepti-
tious and tyrannical one, has the debate of lawfulness or
unlawfulness ever turned seriously on that distinction. It
is neither justified by its defenders only in its mildness, nor
condemned by its accusers only in its severity. Usury in
any degree is asserted by the Doctors of the early Church
to be sinful, just as theft and adultery are asserted to be
sinful, though neither may have been accompanied with
1 [See Vol. XXVII. p. 335.]
2 [The reference is presumably to the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in
1878 : see, in a later volume, Ruskin's letter to Dr. John Brown of October 21,
1878.]
408 ON THE OLD ROAD
violence ; and although the theft may have been on the
most splendid scale, and the fornication of the most courtly
refinement.
So also, in modern days, though the voice of the Bank
of England in Parliament declares a loan without interest
to be a monster,* and a loan made below the current rate
of interest, a monster in its degree, the increase of divi-
dends above that current rate is not, as far as I am aware,
shunned by shareholders with an equally religious horror.
6. But — this strange question being asked — I give its
simple and broad answer in the words of Christ : " The
taking up that thou layedst not down " ; l — or, in explained
and literal terms, usury is any money paid, or other advan-
tage given, for the loan of anything which is restored to
its possessor uninjured and undiminished. For simplest
instance, taking a cabman the other day on a long drive,
I lent him a shilling to get his dinner. If I had kept
thirteen pence out of his fare, the odd penny would have
been usury.
Or again. I lent one of my servants,2 a few years ago,
eleven hundred pounds, to build a house with, and stock
its ground. After some years he paid me the eleven hun-
dred pounds back. If I had taken eleven hundred pounds
and a penny, the extra penny would have been usury.
I do not know whether by the phrase, presently after
used by your Lordship, " religious sanctions," I am to
understand the Law of God which David loved, and Christ
fulfilled,3 or whether the splendour, the commercial pros-
perity, and the familiar acquaintance with a.11 the secrets of
science and treasures of art, which we admire in the City
of Manchester, must in your Lordship's view be considered
as " cases " which the intelligence of the Divine Lawgiver
* Speech of Mr. J. C. Hubbard, M.P. for London, reported in Standard
of 26th July, 1879.
1 [Luke xix. 21.]
2 [Mr. . George Allen.]
3 [Psalms cxix. 97; Matthew v. 17.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 409
could not have originally contemplated. Without attempt-
ing to disguise the narrowness of the horizon grasped by
the glance of the Lord from Sinai,1 nor the inconvenience
of the commandments which Christ has directed those who
love Him to keep,2 am I too troublesome or too exigent in
asking from one of those whom the Holy Ghost has made
our overseers,3 at least a distinct chart of the Old World as
contemplated by the Almighty ; and a clear definition of
even the inappropriate tenor of the orders of Christ : if
only that the modern scientific Churchman may triumph
more securely in the circumference of his heavenly vision,
and accept more gratefully the glorious liberty of the free-
thinking children of God ?
7. To take a definite, and not impertinent, instance, I
observe in the continuing portion of your letter that your
Lordship recognizes in Christ Himself, as doubtless all other
human perfections, so also the perfection of an usurer ; and
that, confidently expecting one day to hear from His lips the
convicting sentence, "Thou knewest that I was an austere
man,"4 your Lordship prepares for yourself, by the disposi-
tion of your capital no less than of your talents, a better
answer than the barren, " Behold, there thou hast that is
thine ! " 6 I would only observe in reply, that although the
conception of the Good Shepherd, which in your Lordship's
language is "implied" in this parable, may indeed be less
that of one who lays down his life for his sheep,6 than of
one who takes up his money for them, the passages of our
Master's instruction, of which the meaning is not implicit,
but explicit, are perhaps those which His simpler disciples
will be safer in following. Of which I find, early in His
teaching, this, almost, as it were, in words of one syllable :
1 [Exodus xix., xx.]
3 [John xiv. 15.]
3 [For the literal meaning of "bishop" (<W<T/COTOS), see Stones of Venice, vol. ii.
(Vol. X. p. 25), and Sesame and Lilies, § 22 (Vol. XVIU. p. 72).]
* [Luke xix. 22 ; compare the examination of the verse in Fors Clavigera,
Letter 53 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 323).]
5 [See Matthew xxv. 25.1
• [f
[See John x. 11.]
410 ON THE OLD ROAD
" Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would
borrow of thee turn not thou away."1
There is nothing more " implied " in this sentence than
the probable disposition to turn away, which might be the
first impulse in the mind of a Christian asked to lend for
nothing, as distinguished from the disciple of the Manchester
school, whose principal care is rather to find, than to avoid,
the enthusiastic and enterprising " him that would borrow
of thee." We of the older tradition, my Lord, think that
prudence, no less than charity, forbids the provocation or
temptation of others into the state of debt, which some
time or other we might be called upon, not only to allow
the payment of without usury, but even altogether to
forgive.
8. (D) " Just as we are told." Where, my Lord, and
by whom ? It is possible that some of the schemers in
physical science, of whom, only a few days since, I heard
one of the leading doctors explain to a pleased audience
that serpents once had legs, and had dropped them off in
the process of development,2 may have advised the modern
disciple of progress of a new meaning in the simple phrase,
" Upon thy belly shalt thou go " ; 3 and that the wisdom of
the serpent may henceforth consist, for true believers of
the scientific Gospel, in the providing of meats for that
spiritual organ of motion. It is doubtless also true that
we shall look vainly among the sayings of Solomon for
any expression of the opinions of Mr. John Stuart Mill ;
but at least this much of Natural science, enough for our
highest need, we may find in the Scriptures — that by the
Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host
of them by the breath of His mouth ; — and this much of
Political, that the Blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich —
and He addeth no sorrow with it.4
1 [Matthew v. 42.]
1 [The reference is to a lecture by Huxley on December 1, 1879: see Vol. XXVI.
pp. 269, 343.]
3 [Genesis iii. 14.]
4 [Psalms xxxiii. 6 ; Proverbs x. 22.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 411
9. (E) " What I do expect to find." Has your Lord-
ship no expectations loftier than these, from severer scrutiny
of the Gospel ? As for instance, of some ordinance of
Love, built on the foundation of Honesty?
10. (F) " Cannot without a violent twist." 1 have never
myself found any person sincerely desirous of obeying the
Word of the Lord, who had the least wish, or occasion,
to twist it ; nay, even those who study it only that they
may discover methods of pardonable disobedience, recognize
the unturnable edge of its sword — and in the worst extre-
mity of their need, strive not to avert, but to evade. The
utmost deceivableness of unrighteousness cannot deceive
itself into satisfactory misinterpretation ; it is reduced always
to a tremulous omission of the texts it is resolved to dis-
obey. But a little while since, I heard an entirely well-
meaning clergyman, taken by surprise in the course of
family worship in the house of a wealthy friend, and find-
ing himself under the painful necessity of reading the fif-
teenth Psalm, omit the first sentence of the closing verse.1
I chanced afterwards to have an opportunity of asking him
why he had done so, and received for answer, that the
lowliness of Christian attainment was not yet " up " to that
verse. The harmonies of iniquity are thus curiously perfect :
— the economies of spiritual nourishment approve the same
methods of adulteration which are found profitable in the
carnal ; until the prudent pastor follows the example of the
well-instructed dairyman ; and provides for his new-born
babes the msincere Milk of the Word, that they may not
grow thereby.2
11. (G) " St. Paul, no doubt, denounces the covetous."
Am I to understand your Lordship as considering this un-
deniable denunciation an original and peculiar view taken by
the least of the Apostles — perhaps, in this particular opinion,
not worthy to be called an Apostle?3 The traditions of
1 [" He that putteth not out his money to usury."]
* [See 1 Peter ii. 2.]
[1 Corinthians xv. 9.]
412 ON THE OLD ROAD
my earlier days were wont to refer me to an earlier source
of the idea ; which does not, however, appear to have
occurred to your Lordship's mind — else the reference to the
authority of Liddell and Scott, for the significance of the
noun TrXeoveKTw, ought to have been made also for that
of the verb eV^vyuew.1 And your Lordship's frankness in
referring me to the instances of your own practice in the
disposal of your income, must plead my excuse for what
might have otherwise seemed impertinent — in noting that
the blamelessness of episcopal character, even by that least
of the Apostles, required in his first Epistle to Timothy,
consists not merely in contentment with an episcopal
share of Church property, but in being in no respect either
aio"xp<>Kep§ris2 — a taker of gain in a base or vulgar manner,
or (j)i\apyvpo$ — a "lover of silver," this latter word being
the common and proper word for covetous, in the Gospels
and Epistles ; as of the Pharisees in Luke xvi. 14 ; and
associated with the other characters of men in perilous
times, 2 Timothy iii. 2, and its relative noun (pi\apyvpia,
given in sum for the root of all evil in 2 Timothy vi. 10,
while even the authority of Liddell and Scott in the inter-
pretation of TrAeovef/a itself as only the desire of getting
more than our share, may perhaps be bettered by the
authority of the teacher, who, declining the appeal made
to him as an equitable ftepurrqs (Luke xii. 14-46), tells his
disciples to beware of covetousness, simply as the desire
of getting more than we have got. " For a man's life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth."
12. Believe me, my Lord, it is not without some diffi-
culty that I check my natural impulse to follow you, as
a scholar, into the interesting analysis of the distinctions
which may be drawn between Rapacity and Acquisitiveness ;
between the Avarice, or the prudent care, of possession ;
1 [The verb meaning " to covet," used in the Commandments : see Exodus xx. 17
(otiK iiriOvfjLT?]<reis).]
2 ["Given to filthy lucre": Titus i. 7.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 413
between the greed, and the modest expectation, of gain ;
between the love of money, which is the root of all evil,1
and the commercial spirit, which is in England held to be
the fountain of all good. These delicate adjustments of
the balance, by which we strive to weigh to a grain the
relative quantities of devotion which we may render in the
service of Mammon and of God,2 are wholly of recent in-
vention and application; nor have they the slightest bearing
either on the spiritual purport of the final commandment
of the Decalogue, or on the distinctness of the subsequent
prohibition of practical usury.
It must be remembered, also, how difficult it has become
to define the term "filthy" with precision, in the present
state, moral and physical, of the English atmosphere ; and
still more so, to judge how far, in that healthy element, a
moderate and delicately sanctified appetite for gold may be
developed into livelier qualms of hunger for righteousness.
It may be matter of private opinion how far the lucre
derived by your Lordship from commission on the fares
and refreshments of the passengers by the North- Western
may be odoriferous or precious, in the same sense as the
ointment on the head of Aaron ; 3 or how far that received
by the Primate of England in royalties on the circulation
of improving literature * may enrich — as with perfumes out
of broken alabaster4 — the empyreal air of Addington. But
the higher class of labourers in the Lord's vineyard might
surely, with true grace, receive, from the last unto the first,
the reflected instruction so often given by the first unto the
last, " Be content with your wages." 5
* See the Articles of Association of the East Surrey Hall, Museum,
and Library Company. (Fors Clavigera, Letter Ixx.6)
1 Timothy vi. 10.]
'See Matthew vi. 24.]
Psalms cxxxii. 3.]
|See Matthew xxvi. 7.]
Luke iii. 14.1
;voi. xxvm. p. 722.]
414 ON THE OLD ROAD
13. (H) " It may, perhaps, not improperly be said." The
Bible Society will doubtless in future gratefully prefix this
guarantee to their publications.
14. (i) "Which we are told." Can we then no more
find for ourselves this writing on our hearts — or has it
ceased to be legible ?
15. (K) "Remunerative employment." I cannot easily
express the astonishment with which I find a man of your
Lordship's intelligence taking up the common phrase of
"giving employment," as if, indeed, labour were the best
gift which the rich could bestow on the poor. Of course,
every idle vagabond, be he rich or poor, "gives employ-
ment" to some otherwise enough burdened wretch, to
provide his dinner and clothes for him ; and tvery vicious
vagabond, in the destructive power of his vice, gives
sorrowful occupation to the energies of resisting and reno-
vating virtue. The idle child who litters its nursery and
tears its frock, gives employment to the housemaid and
sempstress ; the idle woman, who litters her drawing-room
with trinkets, and is ashamed to be seen twice in the same
dress, is, in your Lordship's view, the enlightened supporter
of the arts and manufactures of her country. At the close
of your letter, my Lord, you, though in measured terms,
indignantly dissent from my statement of the power of great
cities for evil ; and indeed I have perhaps been led, by my
prolonged study of the causes of the Fall of Venice, into
clearer recognition of some of these urban influences than
may have been possible to your Lordship in the centre of
the virtues and proprieties which have been blessed by
Providence in the rise of Manchester. But the Scriptural
symbol of the power of temptation in the hand of the
spiritual Babylon — " all kings have been drunk with the
wine of her Fornication"1 — is perfectly literal in its exposi-
tion of the special influence of cities over a vicious, that
is to say, a declining, people. They are the foci of its
1 [Revelation xviii. 3.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 415
fornication, and the practical meaning is that the lords of
the soil take the food and labour of the peasants, who are
their slaves, and spend them especially in forms of luxury
perfected by the definitely so-called " women of the town"
who, whether East-cheap Doll, or West — much the reverse
of cheap — Nell, are, both in the colour which they give to
the Arts, and in the tone which they give to the Manners,
of the State, a literal plague, pestilence and burden to it,
quite otherwise malignant and maleficent than the poor
country lassie who loses her snood among the heather.
And when, at last, real political economy shall exhibit the
exact sources and consequences of the expenditure of the
great capitals of civilization on their own indulgences, your
Lordship will be furnished, in the statistics of their most
splendid and most impious pleasure, with record of precisely
the largest existing source of " remunerative employment " —
(if that were all the poor had to ask for), next after the
preparation and practice of war. I believe it is, indeed,
probable that " facility of intercourse " l gives the next largest
quantity of occupation ; and, as your Lordship rightly ob-
serves, to most respectable persons. And if the entire
population of Manchester lost the use of its legs, your
Lordship would similarly have the satisfaction of observing,
and might share in the profits of providing, the needful
machinery of porterage and stretchers. But observe, my
Lord — and observe as a final and inevitable truth — that
whether you lend your money to provide an invalided
population with crutches, stretchers, hearses, or the rail-
road accommodation which is so often synonymous with the
three, the tax on the use of these, which constitutes the
shareholder's dividend, is a permanent burden upon them,
exacted by avarice, and by no means an aid granted by
benevolence.
16. (L) "Sanctioned by experience." The experience
1 [Not an actual quotation from the Bishop's letter, but a paraphrase of his
" extension of communications " : see above, p. 403, and compare Fors Clavigera,
Letter 10 (Vol. XXVII. p. 174).]
416 ON THE OLD ROAD
of twenty-three years, my Lord, and with the following
result :—
" We have now had an opportunity of practically testing the theory.
Not more than seventeen " (now twenty-three — I quote from a letter
dated 1875) "years have passed since" (by the final abolition of the
Usury laws) "all restraint was removed from the growth of what Lord
Coke calls ' this pestilent weed,' " and we see Bacon's words verified —
"the rich becoming richer, and the poor poorer, throughout the civilized
world."
(Letter from Mr. R. Sillar, quoted in Fors Clavigera,
No. 43.1)
17. (M) " Inevitable." Neither " impossible " nor " inevit-
able" were words of old Christian Faith. But see the
closing paragraph of my letter.
18. (N) Before you call on me to substantiate this charge,
my Lord, I should like to insert after the words, "steadily
preaching," the phrase, " and politely explaining " — with the
Pauline qualification, " whether by word, or our epistle." 2
19. (o) " The great cities of to-day are not worse than
great cities always have been." I do not remember having
said that they were, my Lord ; I have never anticipated
for Manchester a worse fate than that of Sardis or Sodom ; 3
nor have I yet observed any so mighty works4 shown forth
in her by her ministers, as to make her impenitence less
pardonable than that of Sidon or Tyre. But I used the
particular expression which your Lordship supposes me to
have overcharged in righteous indignation, " a boil breaking
forth with blains on man and beast," because that parti-
cular plague was the one which Moses was ordered, in the
Eternal Wisdom, to connect with the ashes of the Furnace 5
— literally, no less than spiritually, when he brought the
Israelites forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the Furnace
of Iron.6 How literally, no less than in faith and hope,
1 [Vol. XXVIII. p. 121.1
2 [2 Thessalonians ii. 15.]
3 [Revelation iii. 1-3 ; Genesis xix. 24.]
4 [See Matthew xi. 21.]
6 ^xodus ix. 8, 9.]
6 'Deuteronomy iv. 20.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 417
the smoke of "the great city, which spiritually is called
Sodom and Egypt," 1 has poisoned the earth, the waters, and
the living creatures, flocks and herds, and the babes that
know not their right hand from their left — neither Memphis,2
Gomorrah, nor Cahors 3 are themselves likely to recognize :
but, as I pause in front of the infinitude of the evil that I
cannot find so much as thought to follow — how much less
words to speak ! — a letter is brought to me which gives what
perhaps may be more impressive in its single and historical
example, than all the general evidence gathered already in
the pages of Fors Clavigera : * —
"I could never understand formerly what you meant about usury, and
about its being wrong to take interest. I said, truly, then that I ' trusted
you/ meaning I knew that in such matters you did not ' opine ' 5 — and
that innumerable things were within your horizon which had no place
within mine.
" But as I did not understand I could only watch and ponder. Gradu-
ally I came to see a little — as when I read current facts about India —
about almost every country, and about our own trade, etc. Then (one of
several circumstances that could be seen more closely) among my mother's
kindred in the north, I watched the ruin of two lives. They began
married life together, with good prospects and sufficient means, in a lovely
little nest among the hills, beyond the Rochdale smoke. Soon this became
too narrow. ' A splendid trade/ more mills, frequent changes into even
finer dwellings, luxurious living, ostentation, extravagance, increasing year
by year, all, as now appears, made possible by usury — borrowed capital.
The wife was laid in her grave lately, and her friends are thankful. The
husband, with ruin threatening his affairs, is in a worse, and living, grave
of evil habits.
"These are some of the loopholes through which light has fallen upon
your words, giving them a new meaning, and making me wonder how I
could have missed seeing it from the first. Once alive to it, I recognize
the evil on all sides, and how we are entangled by it ; and though I am
still puzzled at one or two points, I am very clear about the principle —
that usury is a deadly thing."
Yes ; and deadly always with the vilest forms of destruc-
tion both to soul and body.
20. It happens strangely, my Lord, that although
1 [Revelation xi. 8.]
2 Hosea ix. 6.]
3 'For Cahors, the city of usurers, see Vol. XVII. pp. 220, 560.]
4 See the Index to Fors, under " Usury," Vol. XXIX. p. 671.]
» See Letter 6, § 2 (Vol. XXVII. p. 99).]
418 ON THE OLD ROAD
throughout the seven volumes of Fore Clavigera, I never
have set down a sentence without chastising it first into
terms which could be literally as well as in their widest
bearing justified against all controversy, you could perhaps
not have found in the whole book, had your Lordship read
it for the purpose, any saying quite so literally and terrific-
ally demonstrable as this which you have chanced to select
for attack. For, in the first place, of all the calamities
which in their apparently merciless infliction paralysed the
wavering faith of mediaeval Christendom, the "boil break-
ing forth into blains," in the black plagues of Florence and
London, was the fatallest messenger of the fiends : and,
in the second place, the broad result of the Missionary
labours of the cities of Madrid, Paris, and London, for the
salvation of the wild tribes of the New World, since the
vaunted discovery of it, may be summed in the stern sentence
— Death, by drunkenness and small-pox.
21. The beneficent influence of recent commercial enter-
prise in the communication of such divine grace, and divine
blessing (not to speak of other more dreadful and shameful
conditions of disease), may be studied to best advantage in
the history of the two great French and English Companies,
who have enjoyed the monopoly of clothing the nakedness
of the Old World with coats of skins from the New.1
The charter of the English one, obtained from the
Crown in 1670, was in the language of modern Liberalism
— " wonderfully liberal " : * —
" comprising not only the grant of the exclusive trade, but also of full
territorial possession, to all perpetuity, of the vast lands within the water-
shed of Hudson's Bay. The Company at once established some forts along
the shores of the great inland sea from which it derived its name, and
opened a very lucrative trade with the Indians, so that it never ceased paying
* The Polar World, p. 342, Longmans, 1874.2
1 [Compare Love's Meinie, § 132 (Vol. XXV. p. 125).]
2 [Ruskin proceeds to quote pp. 343-346, with some omissions (now indicated
by dots). For other references to the book by Dr. Hartwig. see Vol. XXV.
p. 119.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 419
rich dividends to the fortunate shareholders, until towards the close of the
last century. . . .
"... Up to this time, with the exception of the voyage of discovery
which Herne (1770-1771) made under its auspices to the mouth of the
Coppermine River, it had done but little for the promotion of geographical
discovery in its vast territory.
" Meanwhile, the Canadian (French) fur traders had become so hateful
to the Indians, that these savages formed a conspiracy for their total
extirpation. Fortunately for the white men, the small-pox broke out about
this time among the red-skins, and swept them away as the fire consumes
the parched grass of the prairies. Their unburied corpses were torn by
the wolves and wild dogs, and the survivors were too weak and dispirited
to be able to undertake anything against the foreign intruders. The
Canadian fur traders now also saw the necessity of combining their efforts
for their mutual benefit, instead of ruining each other by an insane
competition; and consequently formed in 1783 a society which, under the
name of the North-West Company of Canada, . . . ruled over the whole
continent from the Canadian lakes to the Rocky Mountains, and in 1806
it even crossed the barrier and established its forts on the northern tribu-
taries of the Columbia river. To the north it likewise extended its opera-
tions, encroaching more and more upon the privileges of the Hudson's
Bay Company, which, roused to energy, now also pushed on its posts
further and further into the interior, and established, in 1812, a colony
on the Red River to the south of Winnipeg Lake, thus driving, as it
were, a sharp thorn into the side of its rival. But a power like the
North-West Company, which had no less than 50 agents, 70 interpreters,
and 1120 ' voyageurs ' in its pay, and whose chief managers used to
appear at their annual meetings at Fort William, on the banks of Lake
Superior, with all the pomp and pride of feudal barons, was not inclined
to tolerate this encroachment ; and thus, after many quarrels, a regular
war broke out between the two parties, which, after two years' duration,
led to the expulsion of the Red River colonists, and the murder of their
governor Semple. This event took place in the year 1816, and is but
one episode of the bloody feuds which continued to reign between the
two rival Companies until 1821.
" The dissensions of the fur traders had most deplorable consequences for
the Red-skins ; for both Companies, to swell the number of their adherents,
lavishly distributed spirituous liquors — a temptation which no Indian can
resist. The whole of the hunting-grounds of the Saskatchewan and Atha-
basca were but one scene of revelry and bloodshed. Already decimated
by the small-pox, the Indians now became the victims of drunkenness and
discord, and it was to be feared that if the war and its consequent demora-
lization continued, the most important tribes would soon be utterly swept
away. . . .
"At length wisdom prevailed over passion, and the enemies came to a
resolution which, if taken from the very beginning, would have saved them
both a great deal of treasure and many crimes. Instead of continuing to
swing the tomahawk, they now smoked the calumet, and amalgamated in
1821, under the name of 'Hudson's Bay Company,' and under the wing
of the Charter.
xxxiv. 2 D
420 ON THE OLD ROAD
"The British Government, as a dowry to the impoverished couple, pre-
sented them with a licence of exclusive trade throughout the whole of
that territory which, under the name of the ' Hudson's Bay and North-
West territories/ extends from Labrador to the Pacific, and from the Red
River to the Polar Ocean."
22. " Such, my Lord, have been the triumphs of the
modern Evangel of Usury, Competition, and Private Enter-
prise, in a perfectly clear instance of their action, chosen I
hope with sufficient candour, since " History," says Professor
Hind,1 "does not furnish another example of an association
of private individuals exerting a powerful influence over so
large an extent of the earth's surface and administering
their affairs with such consummate skill, and unwavering
devotion to the original objects of their incorporation."
That original object being, of course, that poor naked
America, having yet in a manner two coats, might be
induced by these Christian merchants to give to him that
had none ? 2
In like manner, may any Christian householder, who
has two houses or perchance two parks, ever be induced
to give to him that hath none? My temper and my
courtesy scarcely serve me, my Lord, to reply to your
assertion of the " inevitableness " that, while half of Great
Britain is laid out in hunting-grounds for sport more
savage than the Indian's, the poor of our cities must be
swept into incestuous heaps, or into dens and caves which
are only tombs disquieted, so changing the whiteness of
Jewish sepulchres into the blackness of Christian ones, in
which the hearts of the rich and the homes of the poor
are alike as graves that appear not ; 3 — only their murmur,
that sayeth "it is not enough," sounds deeper beneath us
every hour; nay, the whole earth, and not only the cities
of it, sends forth that ghastly cry; and her fruitful plains
1 [la the Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 211.
Quoted in The Polar World, p. 348.]
J [Luke iii. 11.]
3 [Luke xi. 44. For the other Bible references in § 22, see Joshua xvii. 16;
Genesis xiv. 10 ; Matthew xxvii. 33 ; Revelation xiv. 3 ; and see 1 Corinthians
xv. 55. j
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 421
have become slime-pits, and her fair estuaries, gulfs of
death ; for us, the Mountain of the Lord has become
only Golgotha, and the sound of the new song before
the Throne is drowned in the rolling death-rattle of the
nations, " Oh Christ ; where is thy victory ? "
These are thy glorious works, Mammon parent of Good,1
— and this the true debate, my Lord of Manchester,
between the two Angels of your Church, — whether the
" Dreamland " of its souls be now, or hereafter,2 — now, the
firelight in the cave, or hereafter, the sunlight of Heaven.
23. How, my Lord, am I to receive, or reply to, the
narrow concessions of your closing sentence?3 The Spirit
of Truth was breathed even from the Athenian Acropolis,
and the Law of Justice thundered even from the Cretan
Sinai ; 4 but for us, He who said, " I am the Truth," said
also, " I am the Way, and the Life " ; 5 and for us, He who
reasoned of Righteousness, reasoned also of Temperance
and Judgment to come.6 Is this the sincere milk of the
Word,7 which takes the hope from the Person of Christ,
and the fear from the charge of His apostle, and forbids
to English heroism the perilous vision of Immortality?8
God be with you, my Lord, and exalt your teaching to
that quality of Mercy which, distilling as the rain from
Heaven — not strained9 as through channels from a sullen
1 [See Milton, Paradise Lost, v. 153.]
2 [The reference here is to a sermon of the Bishop's cited in the Letter of Fors
Clavigera to which the Bishop had been replying. In the sermon (on Immortality),
the Bishop said that St. Paul while '"wading in the perilous depths' of anticipa-
p. 163.]
* [In which the Bishop said that if Ruskin would " teach us clergy how better
to discharge our office of ministers of a Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness,"
they would owe him a deep debt of gratitude: see above, p. 405.]
* [The reference is to the Commandments of Minos, King of Crete ; which
Lycurgus is said to have studied before framing the Spartan code (Plutarch's
Lycurgus, iv.).]
6 John xiv. 6.]
• Acts xxiv. 25.]
7 See above, § 10 (p. 411).]
1 |See, again, Vol. XXIX. p. 243.]
• [Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1 ("The quality of Mercy is not strained ;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven"); and Deuteronomy xxxii. 12 ("My
speech shall distil ... as small rain").]
422 ON THE OLD ROAD
reservoir — may soften the hearts of your people to receive
the New Commandment, that they Love one another.1 So,
round the cathedral of your city, shall the merchant's law
be just, and his weights true ; 2 the table of the money-
changer not overthrown,3 and the bench of the money-
lender unbroken.
And to as many as walk according to this rule, Peace
shall be on them, and Mercy, and upon the Israel of God.4
24. With the preceding letter must assuredly end —
for the present, if not for ever5 — my own notes on a
subject of which my strength no longer serves me to
endure the stress and sorrow ; but I may possibly be able
to collect, eventually, into more close form, the already
manifold and sufficient references scattered through Fors
Clavigera: and perhaps to reprint for the St. George's
Guild6 the admirable compendium of British ecclesiastical
and lay authority on the subject, collected by John Blax-
ton, preacher of God's Word at Osmington in Dorset-
shire, printed by John Norton under the title of The
English Usurer, and sold by Francis Bowman, in Oxford,
1634. A still more precious record of the fierce struggle
of usury into life among Christians, and of the resistance
to it by Venice and her " Anthony," * will be found in
the dialogue " della Usura," of Messer Speron Sperone
* "The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best condition'd and unwearied spirit,
In doing courtesies ; and one in whom
The ancient Roman honour more appears,
Than any that drams breath in Italy."
This is the Shakspearian description of that Anthony, whom, the modern
British public, with its new critical lights, calls a "sentimentalist and
1 [John xiii. 34.]
2 [A reference to the inscription found by Ruskin on the first church in Venice :
see Vol. XXI. pp. 268-269.]
» [Matthew xxi. 12.]
« [Galatians vi. 16.]
8 See, however, below, p. 443.]
* These designs, however, were not carried out. For a collection of the prin-
cipal passages on " usury " in Fors, see Vol. XXVII. p. xlvii.]
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 423
(Aldus, in Vinegia, MDXIII.1), followed by the dialogue
" del Cathaio," between " Portia, sola, e fanciulla, fame, e
cibo, vita, e morte, di ciascuno che la conosce," and her
lover Moresini, which is the source of all that is love-
liest in The Merchant of Venice. Readers who seek more
modern and more scientific instruction may consult the
able abstract of the triumph of usury, drawn up by Dr.
Andrew Dickson White, President of Cornell University
(The Warfare of Science, H. S. King & Co., 1877 2), in
which the victory of the great modern scientific principle,
that two and two make five, is traced exultingly to the
final overthrow of St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Bernard,
St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Bossuet, by " the estab-
lishment of the Torlonia family in Rome." A better
collection of the most crushing evidence cannot be found
than this, furnished by an adversary ; a less petulant and
pompous, but more earnest voice from America, Usury the
Giant Sin of the Age, by Edward Palmer (Perth Amboys,
1865), should be read together with it.
25. In the meantime, the substance of the teaching of
the former Church of England, in the great sermon against
usury of Bishop Jewel, may perhaps not uselessly occupy
one additional page of The Contemporary Review:* —
" Usury is a kind of lending of money, or corne, or oyle, or wine, or
of any other thing, wherein, upon covenant and bargaine, we receive
againe the whole principal! which we delivered, and somewhat more, for
speculator ! " 4 — holding Shylock to be the real hero, and innocent victim
of the drama.5
1 [In the edition of 1543, the dialogue "Delia Usura" is at pp. 70 seq., and
that "Del Cathaio" on pp. 156 seq.]
2 [For another reference to this book, see Vol. XXIX. p. 590. Ruskin's
reference here is to pp. 122-133 of the book.]
* [For another reference to the sermon, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 53 (Vol.
XXVIII. p. 340). The discourse occurs in An Exposition upon the First Epistle to
the Thessalonians, iv. 6. See pp. 62-81 in vol. vii. of Jewel's Works, edited by
R. W. Jelf, 1848.]
* [No doubt in some criticism of The Merchant of Venice at the Lyceum (1880) :
see below, p. 545.]
5 [For The Merchant of Venice on usury, see Munera Pulveris, §§ 100, 134
(Vol. XVII. pp. 223, 257); Val tfArno, § 277 (Vol. XXIII. p. 161); and Fort
Clavigera, Letter 76 (Vol. XXIX. p. 98).]
424 ON THE OLD ROAD
the use and occupying of the same ; as if I lend 1 00 pound , and for it
covenant to receive 105 pound, or any other summe, greater then was
the summe which I did lend : this is that which we call usury : such a
kind of bargaining as no good man, or godly man, ever used. Such a kind
of bargaining as all men that ever feared God's judgements have alwaies
abhorred and condemned. It is filthy gaines, and a worke of darkenesse,
it is a monster in nature : the overthrow of mighty kingdoms, the destruc-
tion of flourishing States, the decay of wealthy cities, the plagues of the
world, and the misery of the people : it is theft, it is the murthering of
our brethren, its the curse of God, and the curse of the people. This is
Usury. By these signes and tokens you may know it. For wheresoever it
raigneth all those mischiefes ensue.
" Whence springeth usury ? Soone shewed. Even thence whence theft,
murder, adultery, the plagues, and destruction of the people doe spring.
All these are the workes of the divell, and the workes of the flesh. Christ
telleth the Pharisees, You are of your father the divell, and the lusts of
your father you will doe. Even so may it truely be sayd to the usurer,
Thou art of thy father the divell, and the lusts of thy father thou wilt
doe, and therefore thou hast pleasure in his workes. The divell entered
into the heart of Judas, and put in him this greedinesse, and covetousnesse
of gaine, for which he was content to sell his master. Judas's heart was
the shop, the divell was the foreman to worke in it. They that will be
rich fall into tentation and snares, and into many foolish and noysome
lusts, which drowne men in perdition and destruction. For the desire of
money is the roote of all evil. And St. John saith, Whosoever committeth
sinne is of the Divell, 1 Joh. 3-8. Thus we see that the divell is the
planter, and the father of usury.
"What are the fruits of usury? A. 1. It dissolveth the knot and
fellowship of mankind. 2. It hardeneth man's heart. 3. It maketh men
unnaturall, and bereaveth them of charity, and love to their dearest
friends. 4. It breedeth misery and provoketh the wrath of God from
heaven. 5. It consumeth rich men, it eateth up the poore, it maketh
bankrupts, and undoeth many householders. 6. The poore occupiers are
driven to flee, their wives are left alone, their children are hopelesse, and
driven to beg their bread, through the unmercifull dealing of the covetous
usurer.
" He that is an usurer, wisheth that all others may lacke and come to
him and borrow of him ; that all others may lose, so that he may have
gaine. Therefore our old forefathers so much abhorred this trade, that
they thought an usurer unworthy to live in the company of Christian
men. They suffered not an usurer to be witnesse in matters of Law.
They suffer him not to make a Testament, and to bestow his goods by
will. When an usurer dyed, they would not suffer him to be buried in
places appointed for the buriall of Christians. So highly did they mislike
this unmercifull spoyling and deceiving our brethren.
" But what speak I of the ancient Fathers of the Church ? There was
never any religion, nor sect, nor state, nor degree, nor profession of men,
but they have disliked it. Philosophers, Greekes, Latins, lawyers, divines,
Catholikes, heretics ; all tongues and nations have ever thought an usurer
as dangerous as a theefe. The very sense of nature proves it to be so.
USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER 425
If the stones could speak they would say as much. But some will say all
kindes of usury are not forbidden. There may be cases where usury may
stand with reason and equity, and herein they say so much as by wit
may be devised to paint out a foule and ugly idoll, and to shadow them-
selves in manifest and open wickednesse. Whatsoever God sayth, yet this
or this kind of usury, say they, which is done in this or this sort, is not
forbidden. It proffiteth the Commonwealth, it relieveth great numbers,
the poore should otherwise perish, none would lend them. By like good
reason, there are some that defend theft and murder; they say, there
may be some case where it is lawful to kill or to steale ; for God willed
the Hebrews to rob the Egyptians, and Abraham to kill his own sonne
Isaac. In these cases the robbery and the killing of his sonne were lawful!.
So say they. Even so by the like reason doe some of our countrymen
maintayne concubines, curtizans, and brothel-houses, and stand in defence
of open stewes. They are (say they) for the benefit of the country, they
keepe men from more dangerous inconveniences ; take them away, it will
be worse. Although God say, there shall be no whore of the daughters
of Israel, neither shall there be a whore-keeper of the sonnes of Israel :
yet these men say all manner of whoredom is not forbidden. In these
and these cases it is not amisse to alow it.
" As Samuel sayd to Saul, so may we say to the usurer, Thou hast
devised cases and colours to hide thy shame, but what regard hath God
to thy cases ? What careth He for thy reasons ? the Lord would have
more pleasure, if when thou heareth His voyce thou wouldest obey Him.
For what is thy device against the counsell, and ordinance of God ? W7hat
bold presumption is it for a mortall man to controule the commandments
of immortall God? And to weigh his heavenly wisdome in the ballance
of humane foolishnesse ? When God sayth, Thou shalt not take usury,
what creature of God art thou which canst take usury? When God
maketh it unlawful!, what art thou, oh man, that sayst, it is lawful! ? This
is a token of a desperate mind. It is found true in thee, that Paul sayd,
the love of money is the root of all ill. Thou art so given over unto the
wicked Mammon, that thou carest not to doe the will of God."
Thus far, the theology of Old England. Let it close
with the calm law, spoken four hundred years before Christ,
a fJLtj Kare&oVf /j.rj aveXy.1
1 [Plato, Laws, xi. 913 C.]
11
THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART
IN LARGE TOWNS
(1883)
[Bibliographical Note. — This Paper was an Introduction to a pamphlet by
Mr. Horsfall, with the following title-page : —
The | Study of Beauty, | and | Art in Large Towns. | Two Papers | by
| T. C. Horsfall, | With an Introduction | by | John Ruskin, D.C.L.,
LL.D., | Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Honorary | Fellow
of Corpus-Christi College. | London | Macmillan and Co. | 1883. | Price
Sixpence.
Octavo, pp. 47. Issued, " stabbed" and without wrappers. Ruskin's Intro-
duction occupies pp. 3-10. The first of Mr. Horsfall's two papers was
originally read at the Congress at Nottingham of the Social Science Associa-
tion, and the second at the Manchester Field Naturalists' Society.
The Introduction was reprinted in On the Old Road, 1885, vol. i. pp. 689-
695 (§§ 557-559) ; and again in the second edition of that work, 1899,
vol. ii. pp. 321-329 (§§ 266-268).
The sections are now renumbered.]
THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART
IN LARGE TOWNS
[1883]
1. I HAVE been asked by Mr. Horsfall1 to write a few
words of introduction to the following papers. The trust
is a frank one, for our friendship has been long and intimate
enough to assure their author that my feelings and even
practical convictions in many respects differ from his, and
in some, relating especially to the subjects here treated of,
are even opposed to his ; so that my private letters (which,
to speak truth, he never attends to a word of) are little
more than a series of exhortations to him to sing — once
for all — the beautiful Cavalier ditty of " Farewell, Man-
chester,"2 and pour the dew of his artistic benevolence on
less recusant ground. Nevertheless, as assuredly he knows
much more of his own town than I do, and as his mind is
evidently made up to do the best he can for it, the only
thing left for me to do is to help him all I can in the
hard task he has set himself, or, if I can't help, at least to
bear witness to the goodness of the seed he has set him-
self to sow among thorns.3 For, indeed, the principles on
which he is working are altogether true and sound ; and
the definitions and defence of them, in this pamphlet, are
among the most important pieces of Art teaching which I
have ever met with in recent English literature; in past
1 [For whom and his work in founding an Art Museum at Ancoats (Manchester)
and Ruskiu's correspondence with him, see Vol. XXIX. pp. 149, 195, 589-593.]
* [A Jacobite song, a favourite of Ruskin's : see Prceterita, iii. § 80.]
s [Matthew xiii. 1J.]
429
430 ON THE OLD ROAD
Art-literature there cannot of course be anything parallel
to them, since the difficulties to be met and mischiefs to
be dealt with are wholly of to-day. And in all the practical
suggestions and recommendations given in the following
pages I not only concur, but am myself much aided as I
read them in the giving form to my own plans for the
museum at Sheffield ; l nor do I doubt that they will at
once commend themselves to every intelligent and candid
reader. But, to my own mind, the statements of principle
on which these recommendations are based are far the
more valuable part of the writings, for these are true and
serviceable for all time, and in all places ; while in simplicity
and lucidity they are far beyond any usually to be found
in essays on Art, and the political significance of the laws
thus defined is really, I ; believe, here for the first time
rightly grasped and illustrated.
2. Of these, however, the one whose root is deepest and
range widest will be denied by many readers, and doubted
by others, so that it may be well to say a word or two
farther in its interpretation and defence — the saying, namely,
that " faith cannot dwell in hideous towns," and that " fami-
liarity with beauty is a most powerful aid to belief."2
This is a curious saying, in front of the fact that the
primary force of infidelity in the Renaissance times was its
pursuit of carnal beauty, and that nowadays (at least, so
far as my own experience reaches) more faith may be found
in the back streets of most cities than in the fine ones.
Nevertheless the saying is wholly true, first, because carnal
beauty is not true beauty ; secondly, because, rightly judged,
the fine streets of most modern towns are more hideous
than the back ones ; lastly — and this is the point on which
I must enlarge — because universally the first condition to
the believing there is Order in Heaven is the Sight of
Order upon Earth ; Order, that is to say, not the result of
physical law, but of some spiritual power prevailing over it,
1 [For which, see Vol. XXX.]
2 [See p. 22 of Mr. Horsfall's pamphlet]
BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE TOWNS 431
as, to take instances from my own old and favourite sub-
ject, the ordering of the clouds in a beautiful sunset, which
corresponds to a painter's invention of them, or the ordering
of the colours on a bird's wing, or of the radiations of a
crystal of hoarfrost or of sapphire, concerning any of which
matters men, so called of science, are necessarily and for
ever silent, because the distribution of colours in spectra
and the relation of planes in crystals are final and causeless
facts, orders, that is to say, not laws. And more than this,
the infidel temper which is incapable of perceiving this
spiritual beauty has an instant and constant tendency to
delight in the reverse of it, so that practically its investiga-
tion is always, by preference, of forms of death or disease
and every state of disorder and dissolution, the affectionate
analysis of vice in modern novels being a part of the same
science.1 And, to keep to my own special field of study —
the order of clouds, — there is a grotesquely notable example
of the connection between infidelity and the sense of ugli-
ness in a paper in the last Contemporary Review? in which
an able writer, who signs Vernon Lee, but whose personal
view or purpose remains to the close of the essay inscrutable,
has rendered with considerable acuteness and animation the
course of a dialogue between one of the common modern
men about town who are the parasites of their own cigars
and two more or less weak and foolish friends of hesitatingly
adverse instincts: the three of them, however, practically
assuming their own wisdom to be the highest yet attained
by the human race ; and their own diversion on the moun-
tainous heights of it being by the aspect of a so-called
"preposterous" sunset, described in the following terms:—
" A brilliant light, which seemed to sink out of the landscape all its reds
and yellows, and with them all life ; bleaching the yellowing cornfields and
brown heath; but burnishing into demoniac3 energy of colour the pastures
and oak woods, brilliant against the dark sky, as if filled with green fire.
1 [Compare Fiction, Fair and Foul; above, pp. 268 seq.]
2 [" The Responsibilities of Unbelief : a Conversation between Three Rationalists,"
Contemporary Review, May 1883, vol. 43.1
3 [Compare Art of England, § 132 (Vol. XXX1IJ. p. 355).]
432 ON THE OLD ROAD
"Along the roadside the poppies, which an ordinary sunset makes flame,
were quite extinguished, like burnt-out embers ; the yellow hearts of the
daisies were quite lost, merged into their shining white petals. And,
striking against the windows of the old black and white chequered farm
(a ghastly skeleton in this light), it made them not flare, nay, not redden
in the faintest degree, but reflect a brilliant speck of white light. Every-
thing was unsubstantial, yet not as in a mist, nay, rather substantial, but
flat, as if cut out of paper and pasted on the black branches and green
leaves, the livid, glaring houses, with roofs of dead, scarce perceptible red
(as when an iron turning white-hot from red-hot in the stithy grows also
dull and dim).
" ' It looks like the eve of the coming of Antichrist, as described in
mediaeval hymns,' remarked Vere : ' the sun, before setting nevermore to
rise, sucking all life out of the earth, leaving it but a mound of livid
cinders, barren and crumbling, through which the buried nations will easily
break their way when they arise.' "
As I have above said, I do not discern the purpose of
the writer of this paper; but it would be impossible to
illustrate more clearly this chronic insanity of infidel thought
which makes all nature spectral ; while, with exactly corre-
spondent and reflective power, whatever is dreadful or dis-
ordered in external things reproduces itself in disease of the
human mind affected by them.
3. The correspondent relations of beauty to morality
are illustrated in the following pages in a way which leaves
little to be desired, and scarcely any room for dissent; but
I have marked for my own future reference the following
passages, of which I think it will further the usefulness of
the book that the reader should initially observe the con-
tents and connection.
f. (P. 15, line 6-10 l). — Our idea of beauty in all things
depends on what we believe they ought to be and do.
tt. (P. 17, line 8-17 2). — Pleasure is most to be found
in safe and pure ways, and the greatest happiness of life
is to have a great many little happinesses.
1 ["Our idea of what beauty is in human beings, in pictures, in houses, in
chairs, in animals, in cities, iu everything, in short, which we know to have a use,
in the main depends 011 what we believe that human beings, pictures, and the rest
ought to be and do."]
2 [" Every bank in every country lane, every bush, every tree, the sky by day
and by night, every aspect of nature, is full of beautiful form or colour, or of both,
BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE TOWNS 438
Hi. (P. 24, line 10-80 l). — The wonder and sorrow that in
a country possessing an Established Church, no book exists
which can be put into the hands of youth to show them
the best things that can be done in life, and prevent their
wasting it.
iv. (P. 28, line 21-86 2). — There is every reason to believe
that susceptibility to beauty can be gained through proper
training in childhood by almost every one.
v. (P. 29, line 33-35 8). — But if we are to attain to
either a higher morality or a strong love of beauty, such
attainment must be the result of a strenuous effort and a
strong will.
for those whose eyes and hearts and brains have been opened to perceive beauty.
Richter has somewhere said that man's greatest defect is that he has such a lot of
small ones. With equal truth it may be said that the greatest happiness man can
have is to have a great many little happinesses, and therefore a strong love of
beauty, which enables almost every square inch of unspoiled country to give us
pleasant sensations, is one of the best possessions we can have."]
1 [" It must be evident to every one who watches life carefully that hardly any
one reaches the objects which all should live for who does not strive to reach them,
and that at present not one person in a hundred so much as knows what are the
objects which should be sought in life. It is astounding, therefore, that in a
country which possesses an Established Church, richly endowed universities, and
even several professors of education, no book exists which can be put into the
hands of every intelligent youth, and of every intelligent father and mother,
showing what our wisest and best men believe are the best things which can be
done in life, and what is the kind of training which makes the doing of these
things most easy. It is often said that each of us can profit only by his own
experience, but no one believes that. No one can see how many well-meaning
persons mistake means for ends and drift into error and sin, simply because
neither they nor their parents have known what course should be steered, and
what equipment is needed, in the voyage of life, — no one can see this and doubt
that a ' guide-book to life,' containing the results of the comparison of the experi-
ences of even half-a-dozen able and sincere men, would save countless people from
wasting their lives as most lives are now wasted."]
* ["That which is true with regard to music is true with regard to beauty of
form and colour. Because a great many grown-up people, in spite of great efforts,
find it impossible to sing correctly or even to perceive any pleasantness in music,
it used to be commonly supposed" that a great many people are born without the
power of gaining love of, and skill in, music. Now it is known that it is a question
of early training, that in every thousand children there are very few, — not, I
believe, on an average, more than two or three, — who cannot gain the power of
singing correctly and of enjoying music, if they are taught well in childhood while
their nervous system can still easily form habits and has not yet formed the habit
of being insensible to differences of sound. There is every reason to believe that
susceptibility to beauty of form and colour can also be gained through proper
training in childhood by almost every one."]
a ["In such circumstances as ours there is no such thing as 'a urise passiveness.'
If we are to attain to a high morality or to strong love of beauty, attainment must
be the result of strenuous effort, of strong will."]
434 ON THE OLD ROAD
vi. P. 41, line 16-221). — Rightness of form and aspect
must first be shown to the people in things which interest
them, and about the Tightness of appearance in which it is
possible for them to care a great deal.
vii. (P. 42, line 1-10 2). — And, therefore, Tightness of ap-
pearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions of
the people of these large towns, is of more importance than
Tightness of appearance in what is usually called art, and
pictures of noble action and passion and of beautiful scenery
are of far greater value than art in things which cannot
deeply affect human thought and feeling.
The practical suggestions which, deduced from these
principles, occupy the greater part of Mr. Horsfall's second
paper, exhibit an untried group of resources in education;
and it will be to myself the best encouragement in what-
ever it has been my hope to institute of Art School at
Oxford if the central influence of the University may be
found capable of extension by such means, in methods pro-
moting the general happiness of the people of England.
BRANTWOOD, 28th June, 1883.
1 ["The principle I refer to is, that, as art is the giving of right or beautiful
form, or of beautiful or right appearance, if we desire to make people take keen
interest in art, if we desire to make them love good art, we must show it them
when applied to things which themselves are very interesting to them, and about
the Tightness of appearance of which it is therefore possible for them to care a
great deal."]
2 [" Success in bringing the influence of art to bear on the masses of the popu-
lation in large towns, or on any set of people who have to earn their bread and
have not time to acquire an unhealthy appetite for nonsense verses or nonsense
pictures, will certainly only be attained by persons who know that art is important
just in proportion to the importance of that which it clothes, and who themselves
feel that Tightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions,
in short of the whole life, of the population of those large towns which are now,
or threaten soon to be, ' England, is of far greater importance than Tightness of
appearance in all that which is usually called f art,' and who feel, to speak of only
the fine arts, that Tightness of appearance in pictures of noble action and passion,
and of beautiful scenery, love of which is almost a necessary of mental health, is
of far greater importance than art can be in things which cannot deeply affect
human thought and feeling."]
12
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING
A PREFACE
(1884)
XXXIV. 2 E
[Bibliographical Note. — This paper appeared in a book with the following
title-page : —
The | English School | of Painting. | By | Ernest Chesueau. | Translated
by | L. N. Etherington. | With a Preface by Professor Ruskin. | Cassell
& Company, Limited : | London, Paris, New York & Melbourne. |
1885. | [All rights reserved.]
Crown 8vo, pp. xliii. +339. Ruskin's Preface occupied pp. vii.-xi.
The book was reprinted in a second edition in the same year.
The sections are now numbered. On p. 440, line 3, "of Turner" has
been corrected to "of Turner's pictures."]
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING:
A PREFACE
1. I AM most happy in the privilege accorded to me by the
author of this book1 to introduce to the public of England
— interested as they all are commercially, in the estimate
of English Art formed by foreign States, and as they all
ought to be, morally, in the impression which that art
produces on the minds of its foreign purchasers — a piece
of entirely candid, intimately searching, and delicately intel-
ligent French criticism — mostly praise, indeed, but scrupu-
lously weighed and awarded, of the entire range of English
painting, from the days of Sir Joshua to our own.
Every nation is, in a certain sense, a judge of its own
art, from whose decision there is no appeal. In the common
sense of the phrase, it "knows what it likes," and is only
capable of producing what it likes. But every well-educated
nation also derives a more thrilling, though less intimate
and constant, pleasure, from the just appreciation of the
art of other climates and races. To take an extreme in-
stance : how much vivid and refining pleasure have not we
English taken in Chinese porcelain, just because we were
incapable ourselves of making, with all the British genius
we could concentrate upon that object, a single pattern of
prettily- coloured cup and saucer.
2. Hitherto the action of all Governments in the en-
couragement of National Art has been resolutely wrong, in
one or other of two opposite directions. Either they have
endeavoured to protect their own clumsy workmen from
1 [For earlier references to M. Chesneau, see Vol. III. pp. 683-684 ; Vol. XII.
p. xlv. ; Vol. XIII. p. Ivi. ; Vol. XIV. p. 26y ; and Vol. XV. p. 497.]
437
438 ON THE OLD ROAD
the competition of more dexterous neighbours by laying
duties on foreign art — as at present the Americans, in a
state of hitherto unprecedented egoism and stupidity, and
formerly the English, at the time when my father, in con-
stant mercantile relations with Spain, used to see the most
superb fifteenth and sixteenth century Spanish plate dashed
to pieces and beaten flat by the axes of the Custom House
officers, lest it should perchance be bought by London
citizens in preference to the articles offered by the gold-
smiths of Cheapside — or else they have hoped to teach
the native artist foreign tricks of trade, and filled — as now
the universal repertory at Kensington — their museums and
workrooms with miscellaneous types of unexplained design,
from which the incapablest of their own craftsmen might
filch absurdities enough to provoke demand when trade was
slack, or content a fashion when taste was rabid.
3. We are still, I fear, a long way behind the time — but
it will come — when governments will recognize and culti-
vate the essential genius of their people, aiding them, by
wisely restricted collection and discriminate explanation of
examples, to adopt whatever excellencies of method may
assist them in their proper aims, and to take refined and
sympathetic delight in skill which they cannot emulate.
After being for at least half a century paralysed by
their isolation and self-sufficiency, the British schools of
painting are now in the contrary danger of losing their
national character in their endeavour to become sentimen-
tally German, dramatically Parisian, or decoratively Asiatic.
It is a singular delight to me to hear this acute and
kindly Frenchman assuring us that we have some metal of
our own, and interpreting to his own countrymen some of
the insular merits of a school which hitherto has neither
recommended itself by politeness, confirmed itself by cor-
rectness, nor distinguished itself by imagination.
4. My own concurrence with M. Chesneau's critical judg-
ment respecting all pieces of art with which we have been
alike acquainted, has been enough expressed in my terminal
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING 439
lectures on the " Art of England." l My confidence in his
power of analysing the characters of English art least known
in France is sufficiently proved by my having commissioned
him to write a life of Turner, prefaced by a history of
previous landscape ; to which I believe my own revision
will have little to add in order to make it a just and
sufficient record of my beloved Master.2
In his estimate of other really great painters, I am
always disposed to follow M. Chesneau, as far as my
knowledge permits. But I find him too ready to forgive
the transgressions of minor genius, and to waste his own
and the reader's time in the search for beauties of small
account, and the descriptions of accidental and evanescent
fancy. There are many painters named with praise in the
following pages of whom there is really nothing noteworthy,
except the local or temporary causes of their ever obtaining
any public attention. But I hold myself on this the more
bound in honour to invite public attention to the opinions
of a critic who says the best that can be said of men whom
I have myself treated with remorseless contumely, praying,
however, the reader to observe that in these cases I have
by no means changed or withdrawn from my own opinions,
though I am glad to admit that art which is uninteresting
to me may be useful and helpful to other people.
5. Of the illustrations of the volume I am not justified
in speaking on the strength only of the imperfect states in
which they have been submitted to me ; but this much I
can merely say of them, that they have been prepared with
honest endeavour to represent as much of the character of
the paintings as could be interpreted by woodcut, and not
with the view of producing merely attractive or brilliant
effects on their own independent terms. The renderings of
Hogarth are in this respect both wonderful and exemplary ;
and those from Sir Joshua and Gainsborough are intelli-
gent and accurate, so as really to represent the security of
1 [See §§
2 [On this
113, 114: Vol. XXXIII. pp. 342, 343.]
subject, see again Vol. XIII. p. Ivi.]
440 ON THE OLD ROAD
those two painters from all rivalship in the English school.
Scarcely any attempt has been made to obtain the characters
of Turner's pictures, — but these must be themselves seen, —
the reader who will not take the pains to visit them need
not hope to be otherwise rightly informed about them,
even by the most ingenious of critics and industrious of
engravers. Much greater injustice, though inevitably, is
done to the pre-Raphaelite pictures, which, as a rule,
depend on their colour far more than Turner does ; for
Turner is essentially a chiaroscurist, while the best pre-
Raphaelite work is like so much coloured glass.1
6. But in the meantime, I think M. Chesneau may be
well satisfied in presenting the English public with a list,
indexed by unaffected illustration, of the artists whose work
deserves their recognition and memory ; criticising that
work with absolute frankness and willing admiration, and
leaving the reader to perfect his knowledge by pilgrimage,
now so easily accomplished, to the collections which gift and
bequest are gradually rendering, not only in the metropolis,
but in several of our great commercial centres, representative
not only of the Art of England, but of the art and crafts-
manship alike of the past and the present world.
J. RUSKIN.
OXFORD, 1th December, 1884.
Iluskin added two notes to the text : —
Page 157. " Turner did not always study nature."
" ' Did not sufficiently adhere to it ' would have been right.
He studied nature more, and knew more of it, than all the other
artists of all landscape schools put together. — J. R."
Page 246. " There has been no artist in England possessing genius since
the days of Turner."
"This is rather too hard upon us, my good French friend.
There has not been, and will not be, another Turner, but we
have had some clever fellows among us since, who could have
made a good deal more of themselves if they had better minded
what I said to them. — J. R."
1 [For Turner as chiaroscurist, compare Lectures on Art, § 185 (Vol. XX.
p. 174) ; for Rossetti's colour as " diffused through coloured glass," see Art of
England, § 7 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 271).]
13
USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS
AN INTRODUCTION
(1885)
[Bibliographical Note* — This piece first appeared in a quarto pamphlet with
the following title-page : —
Usury | its | Pernicious Effects on English Agriculture | An Allegory |
Dedicated, without permission, to the | Bishops of | Manchester, Peter-
borough, and Rochester. | " Faithful are the wounds of a friend." |
Prov. xxvii. 6. | London : A. Southey, 146, Fenchurch Street. | 1886.
| Price Two Shillings.
Large 4to, pp. vi. +25. Raskin's Introduction occupied pp. i.-vi. The
book itself was by R. G. Sillar (for whom, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 401).
Issued in cream-coloured paper wrappers, lettered on the front :
" Usury | and | The English | Bishops. | Introduction | by | Professor Ruskin
| 1885" — enclosed in a double-ruled frame.
A second edition was issued in the same year.
The Introduction was reprinted in On the Old Road, §§ 176-181 ; vol. ii.
pp. 239-245 in the first edition of 1885 ; vol. iii. pp. 245-252 in the second
edition of 1899.
The sections are now renumbered.]
USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS:
AN INTRODUCTION
1. IN the wise, practical, and affectionate sermon, given
from St. Mary's pulpit last autumn to the youth of Oxford,
by the good Bishop of Carlisle,1 his Lordship took occasion
to warn his eagerly attentive audience, with deep earnest-
ness, against the crime of debt ; dwelling with powerful
invective on the cruelty and selfishness with which, too
often, the son wasted in his follies the fruits of his father's
labour, or the means of his family's subsistence ; and in-
volved himself in embarrassments which, said the Bishop,
" I have again and again known to cause the misery of
all subsequent life."
The sin was charged, the appeal pressed, only on the
preacher's undergraduate hearers. Beneath the gallery, the
Heads of Houses sate, remorseless ; nor from the pulpit was
a single hint permitted that any measures could be rationally
taken for the protection, no less than the warning, of the
youth under their care. No such suggestion would have
been received, if even understood, by any English congrega-
tion of this time ; — a strange and perilous time, in which
the greatest commercial people of the world have been
brought to think Usury the most honourable and fruitful
branch, or rather perennial stem, of commercial industry.
2. But whose the fault that English congregations are
in this temper, and this ignorance ? The saying of mine,*
* " Everything evil in Europe is primarily the fault of her Bishops." 2
1 [Ruskin's friend Dr. Harvey Goodwin, an occasional visitor at Brantwood.]
1 [See "Notes on the Priest's Office" in Roadside Songs of Tuscany, Vol. XXXII.
p. 118.]
443
444 ON THE OLD ROAD
which the author of this book quotes in the close of his
introduction, was written by me with a meaning altogether
opposite, and far more forcible, than that which it might
seem to bear to a careless interpreter.* In the present
state of popular revolt against all conception and manner
of authority, but more especially spiritual authority, the
sentence reads as if it were written by an adversary of the
Church, — a hater of its Prelacy, — an advocate of universal
liberty of thought and licence of crime : whereas the sentence
is really written in the conviction (I might say knowledge,
if I spoke without deference to the reader's incredulity) that
the Pastoral Office must for ever be the highest, for good
or evil, in every Christian land ; and that when it fails in
vigilance, faith, or courage, the sheep must be scattered,
and neither King nor law avail any more to protect them
against the fury of their own passions, nor any human
sagacity against the deception of their own hearts.
3. Since, however, these things are instantly so, and the
Bishops of England have now with one accord consented to
become merely the highly salaried vergers of her Cathedrals,
taking care that the choristers do not play at leapfrog in
the Churchyard, that the Precincts are elegantly iron-railed
from the profane parts of the town, and that the doors of
the building be duly locked,1 so that nobody may pray in
it at improper times, — these things being so, may we not
turn to the " every-man-his-own- Bishop " party, with its
Bible Society, Missionary zeal, and right of infallible private
interpretation, to ask at least for some small exposition to
the inhabitants of their own country, of those Scriptures
which they are so fain to put in the possession of others ;
and this the rather, because the popular familiar version of
the New Testament among us, unwritten, seems to be now
* " I knew, in using it, perfectly well what you meant." (Note by
Mr. Sillar.)
1 [For Ruskin's complaints on this score, see Vol. XXXIII. p. 511.]
USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS 445
the exact contrary of that which we were once taught to
be of Divine authority.
4. I place, side by side, the ancient and modern versions
of the seven verses of the New Testament which were the
beginning, and are indeed the heads, of all the teaching of
Christ :—
Ancient
Blessed are the Poor in
Spirit, for their's is the
kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be com-
forted.
Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do
hunger for righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy.
Ble: sed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the Peace-makers,
for they shall be called the
children of God.
Modern
Blessed are the Rich in
Flesh, for their's is the
kingdom of Earth.
Blessed are they that are
merry, and laugh the last.
Blessed are the proud, in
that they have inherited
the earth.
Blessed are they which hun-
ger for unrighteousness, in
that they shall divide its
mammon.
Blessed are the merciless, for
they shall obtain money.
Blessed are the foul in heart,
for they shall see no God.
Blessed are the War-makers,
for they shall be adored by
the children of men.
5. Who are the true " Makers of War," the promoters
and supports of it, I showed long since in the note to the
brief sentence of Unto this Last.1 " It is entirely capitalists'
(i.e., Usurers') wealth* which supports unjust Wars." But
* "Cash," I should have said, in accuracy — not "wealth."
1 [See § 76 n. : Vol. XVII. p. 103.]
446 ON THE OLD ROAD
to what extent the adoration of the Usurer, and the slavery
consequent upon it, has perverted the soul or bound the
hands of every man in Europe, I will let the reader hear,
from authority he will less doubt than mine : —
"Financiers are the mischievous feudalism of the nineteenth century.
A handful of men have invented distant, seductive loans, have introduced
national debts in countries happily ignorant of them, have advanced money
to unsophisticated Powers on ruinous terms, and then, by appealing to
small investors all over the world, got rid of the bonds. Furthermore,
with the difference between the advances and the sale of bonds, they
caused a fall in the securities which they had issued, and, having sold at
80, they bought back at 10, taking advantage of the public panic. Again,
with the money thus obtained, they bought up consciences, where con-
sciences are marketable, and under the pretence of providing the country
thus traded upon with new means of communication, they passed money
into their own coffers. They have had pupils, imitators, and plagiarists ;
and at the present moment, under different names, the financiers rule the
world, are a sore of society, and form one of the chief causes of modern
crises.
" Unlike the Nile, wherever they pass they render the soil dry and
barren. The treasures of the world flow into their cellars, and there re-
main. They spend one-tenth of their revenues; the remaining nine-tenths
they hoard and divert from circulation. They distribute favours, and are
great political leaders. They have not assumed the place of the old nobility,
but have taken the latter into their service. Princes are their chamberlains,
dukes open their doors, and marquises act as their equerries when they
deign to ride.
"These new grandees canter on their splendid Arabs along Rotten Row,
the Bois de Boulogne, the Prospect, the Prater, or Unter den Linden.
The shopkeepers, and all who save money, bow low to these men, who
represent their savings, which they will never again see under any other
form. Proof against sarcasms, sure of the respect of the Continental Press,
protecting each other with a sort of freemasonry, the financiers dictate
laws, determine the fate of nations, and render the cleverest political com-
binations abortive. They are everywhere received and listened to, and all
the Cabinets feel their influence. Governments watch them with uneasiness,
and even the Iron Chancellor has his gilded Egeria, who reports to him
the wishes of this the sole modern Autocrat." — Letter from Paris Correspon-
dent, " Times," SOtk January, 1885.
6. But to this statement, I must add the one made to
§ 149 (see note) of Munera Pulveris,1 that if we could trace
the innermost of all causes of modern war, they would be
found, not in the avarice or ambition, but the idleness of
1 [Vol. XVII. p. 274 n.]
USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS 447
the upper classes. " They have nothing to do but to teach
the peasantry to kill each other " — while that the peasantry
are thus teachable, is further again dependent on their not
having been educated primarily in the common law of
justice. See again Munera Pulveris, Appendix I. : " Pre-
cisely according to the number of just men in a nation is
their power of avoiding either intestine or foreign war."1
I rejoice to see my old friend Mr. Sillar gathering
finally together the evidence he has so industriously col-
lected on the guilt of usury, and supporting it by the
always impressive language of symbolical art;2 for indeed
I had myself no idea, till I read the connected statement
which these pictures illustrate, how steadily the system of
money-lending had gained on the nation, and how fatally
every hand and foot was now entangled by it. Yet in com-
mending the study of this book to every virtuous and
patriotic Englishman, I must firmly remind the reader, that
all these sins and errors are only the branches from one
root of bitterness — mortal Pride. For this we gather, for
this we war, for this we die — here and hereafter; while all
the while the Wisdom which is from above stands vainly
teaching us the way to Earthly Riches and to Heavenly
Peace, " What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but
to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God?"3
BRANTWOOD, 1th March, 1885.
1 [Vol. XVII. p. 285.]
2 [Mr. Sillar's pamphlet consists of a collection of paragraphs, all condemnatory
of usury, from the writings of the English bishops, from the sixteenth century
down to the present time ; and is illustrated by five emblematic woodcuts repre-
senting an oak tree (English commerce) gradually overgrown and destroyed by an
ivy-plant (usury).]
3 [Micah vi. 8.]
14
THE NATIONAL GALLERY:
A PREFACE
(1888)
[Bibliographical Note. — This Preface appeared in a book with the following
title-page : —
A Popular Handbook | to the | National Gallery | including, by special
permission, notes collected from the works of | Mr. Ruskin | Compiled
by | Edward T. Cook | With Preface by John Ruskin, LL.D., D.C.L.
| London | Macmillan and Co. | and New York | 1888 | All rights re-
served.
Crown 8vo, pp. xxi. +703. Issued in September 1888. There was also a
large-paper edition of 250 copies in 2 vols.
A second edition of the Handbook appeared in 1889 ; a third in 1890 ;
a fourth in 1893 ; a fifth in 1897 ; a sixth (in 2 vols. ) in 1901 ; and a
seventh in 1908.
Ruskin's Preface occupied pp. vii.-ix.]
THE NATIONAL GALLERY:
A PREFACE
So far as I know, there has never yet been compiled, for
the illustration of any collection of paintings whatever, a
series of notes at once so copious, carefully chosen, and
usefully arranged, as this which has been prepared, by the
industry and good sense of Mr. Edward T. Cook, to be
our companion through the magnificent rooms of our own
National Gallery; without question now the most important
collection of paintings in Europe for the purposes of the
general student. Of course the Florentine School must
always be studied in Florence, the Dutch in Holland, and
the Roman in Rome ; but to obtain a clear knowledge of
their relations to each other, and compare with the best
advantage the characters in which they severally excel, the
thoughtful scholars of any foreign country ought now to
become pilgrims to the Dome — (such as it is) — of Trafalgar
Square.
We have indeed — be it to our humiliation remembered
— small reason to congratulate ourselves on the enlargement
of the collection now belonging to the public, by the sale
of the former possessions of our nobles. But since the
parks and castles which were once the pride, beauty, and
political strength of England are doomed by the progress
of democracy to be cut up into lots on building leases,
and have their libraries and pictures sold at Sotheby's
and Christie's, we may at least be thankful that the funds
placed by the Government at the disposal of the Trustees
for the National Gallery have permitted them to save so
much from the wreck of English mansions and Italian
xxxiv. 451 2 F
452 ON THE OLD ROAD
monasteries, and enrich the recreations of our metropolis
with graceful interludes by Perugino and Raphael.
It will be at once felt by the readers of the following
catalogue that it tells them, about every picture and its
painter, just the things they wished to know. They may
rest satisfied also that it tells them these things on the
best historical authorities, and that they have in its con-
cise pages an account of the rise and decline of the arts
of the Old Masters, and record of their personal characters
and worldly state and fortunes, leaving nothing of authentic
tradition, and essential interest, untold.
As a collection of critical remarks by esteemed judges,
and of clearly formed opinions by earnest lovers of art, the
little book possesses a metaphysical interest quite as great
as its historical one. Of course the first persons to be con-
sulted on the merit of a picture are those for whom the
artist painted it : with those in after generations who have
sympathy with them ; one does not ask a Roundhead or a
Republican his opinion of the Vandyke at Wilton,1 nor a
Presbyterian minister his impressions of the Sistine Chapel :
— but from any one honestly taking pleasure in any sort
of painting, it is always worth while to hear the grounds
of his admiration, if he can himself analyse them. For
those who take no pleasure in painting, or who are offended
by its inevitable faults, any form of criticism is insolent.
Opinion is only valuable when it
"gilds with various rays
These painted clouds that beautify our days."2
When I last lingered in the Gallery before my old
favourites, I thought them more wonderful than ever before ;
but as I draw towards the close of life, I feel that the
1 [There are several Vandykes at Wilton House, of which the most celebrated
is the picture of "Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and his Family." With Ruskin's
point here, compare Vol. III. p. 648 : " Each work must be tested exclusively by
the fiat of the particular public to whom it is addressed."]
3 [Pope's Essay on Man; the passage from which the lines are taken is quoted
by Ruskin in The Mystery of Life and its Arts, Vol. XVIII. p. 151.]
THE NATIONAL GALLERY 453
real world is more wonderful yet: that Painting has not
yet fulfilled half her mission, — she has told us only of the
heroism of men and the happiness of angels : she may
perhaps record in future the beauty of a world whose
mortal inhabitants are happy, and which angels may be
glad to visit.
J. RUSKIN.
April 1888.
Ruskin also added two notes (pp. 8-9) to Mr. Cook's essay on the
Florentine School.
(1) On Mr. Cook's quoting the saying of Morelli (Italian Masters in
German Galleries, 1883) that when a nation's culture has reached its
culminating point, grace comes to be valued more than character, Ruskin
remarked : —
" Well said : but it remains to be asked whether the ' grace '
sought is modest, or wanton; affectionate, or licentious. (J. R.)"
(2) Mr. Cook, after tracing how grace passed into insipidity, said that
" Italian art, having run its course, became extinct." At this point Ruskin
added a note, referring partly to the statement just quoted, and partly to a
passage which Mr. Cook quoted from The Relation between Michael Angelo and
Tintoret (Vol. XXII. pp. 79, 80), in which Ruskin connects the decadence
of Italian painting with a decay in religion : —
" Not by its own natural course o; decay ; but by the political
and moral ruin of the cities by whose virtue it had been taught,
and in whose glory it had flourished. The analysis of the decline
of religious faith quoted below does not enough regard the social
and material mischief which accompanied that decline. (J. R.)"
To the date at which Ruskin wrote the foregoing Preface belongs the follow-
ing conversation (recorded in the Daily News, February 8, 1899) : —
" The Gallery," he said, " is now greatly improved ; the new rooms are
delightful, and the hanging is quite a beautiful piece of work. Some of my old
favourites I thought more beautiful than ever before. Botticelli's circle of angels,1
for instance, is most lovely, and what an amount of work there is in it ! With
most painters you see at once the pains they were at, but here it is not obvious.
But I have come away, I must tell you, in very humble mood. To begin with :
I don't like Raphael, but the new picture (the Ansidei Madonna) is perfect.2 I
cannot deny it — the loveliest Raphael in the world, I think. But, indeed, on all
1 [If Ruskin referred to "The Assumption" (No. 1126), his opinion had changed :
see in a later volume a letter of February 14, 1873.]
2 [Though new to the National Gallery, the picture had been familiar to Ruskin
many years before, when it was at Blenheim : see his letter to " A College Friend "
in Vol. I. p. 495 and H.I
454 ON THE OLD ROAD
sides I have been impressed to-day more strongly than ever with the exhaustless
beauty and industry of the Italian masters. The contrast between them and the
littleness and bad workmanship even of the best of the English modern painters
struck me most painfully. AV hy," he added, with a smile, " for I may as well
make a clean breast of it, I even found myself admiring Canaletto's pictures of
Venice" — Canaletto, whom the champion of Modern Painters had in other days
denounced for his "miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism," and whose man-
nerism he had characterised as "the most degraded in the whole range of art."
I suggested, I remember, that Mr. Ruskin could not have been to Venice lately,
and that his own sensations of the light and colour of the place must have become
subdued to Canaletto's key. But he would not accept the suggestion. "No," he
said, " it was Canaletto's good workmanship he found himself admiring. After
all, the old painter of Venice was a good craftsman in oil." l
1 [Compare Vol III. p 216 n.]
Ill
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
ARROWS OF THE GRACE
BEING
A COLLECTION OF SCATTERED LETTERS
PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS,— 1851-1896
BY JOHN RUSKIN
GEORGE ALLEN
156, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON
1908
" I NEVER WROTE A LETTER IN MY LIFE WHICH ALL THE
WORLD ARE NOT WELCOME TO READ IF THEY WILL."
Fors Clavigera, Letter 59 (1875).
[Bibliographical Note. — The title of the following collection is that which
was given by Ruskin to two volumes published in 1880 (see the Intro-
duction, above, p. xxxviii.). The main sources of the collection are (1) the
volumes just mentioned, the following pages including such contents of
them as ,have not been already printed in the present edition of the
Works ; and (2) the first Part of a privately-issued collection of letters,
etc., supplementary to Arrows of the Chace, printed in 1890 under the
title Ruskiniana. In this note the usual particulars of each work are given,
followed by a synopsis showing the original arrangement of each book and
the place in this edition where its contents are severally printed.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE (1880)
Of the book so entitled there has only been one edition. The title-
page is as follows : —
Arrows of the Chace | Being | A Collection of Scattered Letters | Pub-
lished Chiefly in the Daily Newspapers, — 1840-1880 | By | John Ruskin,
LL.D., D.C.L., | Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Honorary
Fellow of | Corpus Christi College, Oxford, | And now edited by | An
Oxford Pupil. | With Preface by the Author. | Volume I. — Letters on
Art and Science. | [Volume II. — Letters on Politics, Economy, and
Miscellaneous Matters.] [Rose.] \ George Allen, J Sunnyside, Orping-
ton, Kent. | 1880. | [All Rights reserved,]
Volume I. — Octavo, pp. xxv. +306. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page, p. iii. ;
on the reverse, the quotation from Fors (as here, on p. 458) ; Contents
of Vol. I., pp. v.-viii. ; Author's Preface, pp. ix.-xiii. ; Editor's Preface,
pp. xv.-xxi. ; Chronological List of Letters in Vol. I., pp. xxii.-xxv. ; Letters,
with fly-title to each division, pp. 1-306.
Issued (with the second volume) on December 6, 1880, in mottled-grey
paper boards, with white paper back-label,1 which reads : " Ruskin. | Arrows
J of the | Chace. | Vol. I." 2000 copies. Price, 30s. the two volumes
(reduced in 1893 to 20s., in 1900 to 15s., and in 1905 to 10s.). The
edition is still current.
110 copies were printed on large paper (quarto), price 60s. Of these
10 were specially prepared for presentation, and have the frontispiece to
Vol. I. pulled upon Indian paper.
The frontispiece ("British Ferns") is in this edition given in Vol. XVI.,
Plate VII. (p. 205). On p. 212 was a Plate ("Spandril of Iron- Work");
this is also in Vol. XVI. (p. 233). On page 123 was & facsimile of a portion
of a letter to Mr. Norton on Turner ; for this, see Vol. XIII. p. 324.
1 Arrows of the C/iace was the first book of Ruskin's thus put up ; and also the
first issued by Mr. Allen with "uncut" edges.
459
460 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
The " Oxford Pupil " who edited the book was Mr. Wedderburn ; his
Preface is as follows: —
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Some words are needed by way of a general note to the present volumes in
explanation of the principles upon which they have been edited. It is, however, first
due to the compiler of the Bibliography of Mr. Ruskin's writings,* to state in what
measure this book has been prompted and assisted by his previous labours. Already
acquainted with some few of the letters which Mr. Ruskin had addressed at various
times to the different organs of the daily press, or which had indirectly found their
way there, it was not until I came across the Bibliography that I was encouraged to
complete and arrange a collection of these scattered portions of hi« thought. When
I had done this, I ventured to submit the whole number of the letters to their author,
and to ask him if, after taking two or three of them as examples of the rest, he would
not consider the advisability of himself republishing, if not all, at least a selected
few. In reply, he was good enough to put me in communication with his publisher,
and to request me to edit any or all of the letters without further reference to him.
I have, therefore^ to point out that except for that request, or rather sanction ;
for the preface1 which he has promised to add after my work upon the volumes is
finished ; and for the title which it bears, Mr. Ruskin is in no way responsible for
this edition of his letters. I knew, indeed, from the words of Fora Clnvigera which
are printed as a motto to the book, that I ran little risk of his disapproval in deter-
mining to print, not a selection, but the whole number of letters in question ; and I
felt certain that the completeness of the collection would be considered a first essential
by most of its readers, who are thus assured that the present volumes contain, with
but two exceptions, every letter mentioned in the last edition of the bibliography,
and some few more beside, which have been either printed or discovered since its
publication.
The two exceptions are, first, the series of letters on the Lord's Prayer which
appeared in the pages of the Contemporary Review last December ; and, secondly,
some half-dozen upon "A Museum or Picture Gallery," printed in the Art Journal
of last June and August.2 It seemed that both these sets of letters were really more
akin to review articles cast in an epistolary form, and would thus find fitter place in
a collection of such papers than in the present volumes ; and for the omission of the
second set there was a still further reason in the fact that the series is not yet
oompleted.f On the other hand, the recent circular on the proposed interference
with St. Mark's, Venice, is included in the first, and one or two other extraneous
matters in the second volume, for reasons which their connection with the letters
amongst which they are placed will make sufficiently clear.
The letters are reprinted word for word, and almost stop for stop, from the news-
papers and other pages in which they first appeared. To ensure this accuracy was
not an easy matter, and to it there are a few intentional exceptions. A few misprints
have been corrected, such as that of "Fat Bard" for ''Fort Bard" (vol. i. p. 147) ;3
and now and then the punctuation has been changed, as on the 256th page of the
same volume, where a comma, placed in the original print of the letter between the
words "visibly" and "owing," quite confused the sentence.4 To these slight altera-
tions may be added others still less important, such as the commencement of a fresh
* "The Bibliography of Ruskin: a bibliographical list, arranged in chronological
order, of the published writings of John Ruskin, M.A. (From 1834 to 1879.)" By
Richard Herne Shepherd.6
f The letter out of which it took its rise, however, will be found on the 82nd page
of the first volume ; and with regard to it, and especially to the mention of Mr. Frith's
picture in it, reference should be made to part of a further letter in the Art Journal
of this month.
"I owe some apology, by the way, to Mr. Frith, for the way I spoke of his picture
in my letter to the Leicester committee, not intended for publication, though I never
write what I would not allow to be published, and was glad that they asked leave to
print it." (Art Journal, August 1880, where this sentence is further explained.6)
1 The "Epilogue" (in addition to the Preface) was an afterthought.
2 For these two series of letters (afterwards included in On the Old Road), see
above, pp. 175-262.
3 For the letter in which this misprint occurred, see now Vol. XIII. p. 342.
< See now Vol. XXVI. p. 548 (line 12).
5 At that time, the only Bibliography of Ruskin. For Ruskin's letters on it to the
compiler, see below, p. 537.
8 See now below, p. 542; and above, p. 246.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 461
paragraph, or the closing up of an existing one, to suit the composition of the type,
which the number of notes rendered unusually tiresome. The title of a letter, too, is
not always that provided it by the newspaper ; in some cases it seemed well to re-
christen, in others it was necessary to christen a letter, though the former has never
been done where it was at all possible that the existing title (for which reference can
always be made to the bibliography) was one given to it by Mr. Ruskin himself.
The classification of the letters is well enough shown by the tables of contents.
The advantages of a topical over a chronological arrangement appeared beyond all
doubt ; l whilst the addition to each volume of a chronological list of the letters con-
tained in it, and the further addition to the second volume of a similar list of all the
letters contained in the book, and of a full index, will, it is hoped, increase the
usefulness of the work.
The beautiful engraving which forms the frontispiece of the first volume originally
formed that of The Oxford Museum. The plate was but little used in the appa-
rently small edition of that book, and was thus found to be in excellent state for
further use here. The woodcut of the chesnut spandril (vol. i. p. 212) is copied from
one which may also be found in The Oxford Museum, The facsimile of part of one
of the letters is not quite satisfactory, the lines being somewhat thicker than they
should be, but it answers its present purpose.
Lastly, the chief difficulty of editing these letters has been in regard to the notes,
and has lain not so much in obtaining the necessary information as in deciding what
use to make of it when obtained. The first point was, of course, to put the reader of
the present volumes in possession of every fact which would have been common
knowledge at the time when such and such a letter was written ; but beyond this
there were various allusions, which might be thought to need explanation ; quotations,
the exact reference to which might be convenient ; and so forth. Some notes, there-
fore, of this character have been also added, whilst some few which were omitted,
either intentionally or by accident, from the body of the work, may be found on
reference to the index.*
The effort to make the book complete has induced the notice of slight variations
of text in one or two cases, especially in the reprint of the St. Mark's Circular. The
space occupied by such notes is small, the interest which a few students take in the
facts they notice really great, and the appearance of pedantry to some readers is
thus risked in order to meet the special wish of others. The same effort will account
for the reappearance of one or two really unimportant letters in the Appendix to the
second volume, which contains also some few letters the nature of which is rather
personal than public.
I have asked Mr. Ruskin to state in his preface to the book the value he may set
upon it in relation to his other and more connected work ; and for the rest, I have
only to add that the editing of it has been the pleasant labour of my leisure for more
than two years past, and to express my hope that these scattered arrows, some from
the bow of "An Oxford Graduate," some from that of an Oxford Professor, may not
have been vainly winged anew by
An OXFORD PPPIL.
October, 1880.
Volume II. — Octavo, pp. xvi. + 348. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page, with
reverse as before, pp. iii.-iv. ; Contents of Vol. II., pp. v.-ix. ; Chronological
List of Letters in Vol. II., pp. x.-xv. ; Editor's Note, p. xvi. ;2 Letters,
with fly-title to each division, pp. 1-264 ; Appendix, pp. 265-284 ; Author's
Epilogue, pp. 285-289 ; Chronological List of Letters in Both Volumes,
* Some of the notes, it will be remarked, are in larger type than the rest ; these
are Mr. Ruskin's original notes to the letters as first published, and are in fact part
of them ; and they are so printed to distinguish them from the other notes, for which
I am responsible.
1 The topical arrangement has, however, been abandoned in this volume, owing to
the fact that many whole classes of the letters have already appeared in the previous
volumes of the edition to which they were relevant. A chronological list of all Ruskin's
public letters, printed in this and other volumes of this edition, is included in the
final Bibliography. But a List of Contents, in which the letters are grouped under
subject-headings, is supplied (p. 475) ; while an index is incorporated in the General
Index to the edition.
8 The quotation from Fort, as in vol. i.-
462 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
pp. 291-301 ; Index, pp. 303-348. At the foot of the last page is the
imprint — "Hazell, Watson & Viuey, Printers, London and Aylesbury."
Numerous extracts from Arrows of the Chace, then in preparation, had
been given by Mr. Wedderburn in two articles in the Contemporary
Review, for June and July 1880; vol. 37, pp. 905-923; vol. 38, pp. 69-
100. The articles are entitled "The Public Letters of John Ruskin."
Reviews of Arrows of the Chace (copies of which were sent to the press)
were very numerous, appearing (among other places) in
Times, December 8, 1880 (leading article).
Cheshire Observer, December 11, 1880 (by E. J. Baillie).
Athenaeum, December 18, 1880 (see above, p. xliv.).
The Teacher, December 24, 1880.
Christian World, January 20, 1881.
Saturday Review, January 29, 1881.
Gentleman's Magazine, February 1881.
Academy, February 12, 1881 (by Mark Pattison : see above, p. xli.).
Literary World, February 18, 1881.
Whitehall Review, March 3, 1881.
Scotsman, March 29, 1881.
Appleton's Journal (New York), vol. 10, N.S., April 1881, pp. 361-368.
Literary World (Boston), April 23, 1881.
The Nation (New York), September 15, 1881 ; vol. 33, pp. 220-221.
Spectator, June 3, 1882.
Edinburgh Review, January 1888 ("The Works of Mr. Ruskin").
CONTENTS OF "ARROWS OF THE CHACE" (1880)
VOLUME I
PAGE IN THIS EDITION
AUTHOR'S PBEFACE ix Below, p. 469
EDITOR'S PREFACE xv Above, p. 460
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS IN VOLUME I. . xxii See above, p. 461 n.
LETTERS ON ART:
I. ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION.
" Modern Painters ;" a Reply. 1843 ... 3 Vol. III. p. 641
Art Criticism. 1843 14 ,, p. 645
The Arts as a Branch of Education. 1857 . . 37 Vol. XVI. p. 449
Art-teaching by Correspondence. 1860 ... 50 Below, p. 490
II. PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
Danger to the National Gallery. 1847 ... 53 Vol. XII. p. 397
The National Gallery. 1852 67 „ p. 407
The British Museum. 1866 78 Vol. XIX. p. 229
On the Purchase of Pictures. 1880 ... 82 Below, p. 542
III. PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 13) . 85 Vol. XII. p. 319
The Prs-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 30) .92 ,, p. 324
"The Light of the World," Holman Hunt. 1854 98 „ p. 328
"The Awakening Conscience, " Hoi man Hunt. 1854 104 p. 333
Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool. 1858 ... 108 Vol XIV. p. 327
Generalization and the Scotch Pre-Raphaelites.
1858 110 „ p. 329
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
463
IV. TURNER,
PAGE
IN THIS EDITION
The Turner Bequest. 1856
117
Vol. XIII.
p. 81
Turner's Sketch-book. 1858
123 TJ.
p. 324 n.
The Turner Bequest and the National Gallery. 1857
124
p. 87
The Turner Sketches and Drawings. 1858 .
127
p. 329
The Liber Studiorum. 1858
141 n.
Vol. XV.
p. xxiv.
The Turner Gallery at Kensington. 1859 .
143
Vol. XIII.
p. 339
Turner's Drawings. 1876 (July 5) .
146
p. 341
Turner's Drawings. 1876 (July 19) ...
153
p. 345 n.
Copies of Turner's Drawings. 1876
154
p. 576
Copies of Turner's Drawings— Extract. 1857
154 «.
p. 576
Copy of Turner's Fluelen
ibid.
p. 577
"Turners," false and true. 1871 . . . .
156
P. 579
The Character of Turner. 1857 ....
157
p. 554
Thornbury's Life of Turner. 1861
158
p. 554 n.
V. PlCTUBBS AND ARTISTS.
John Leech's Outlines. 1872
161
Vol. XIV.
p. 332
Ernest George's Etchings. 1873 ....
165
1]
p. 335
The Frederick Walker Exhibition. 1876
170
p. 339
VI. ARCHITECTURE AND RESTORATION.
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1858
181
Vol XVI.
p. 211
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1859
191
,
p. 219
The Castle Rock (Edinburgh). 1857 (Sept. 14) .
214
Below,
p. 484
Edinburgh Castle. 1857 (Sept. 27) .
217
,
p. 486
Castles and Kennels. 1871 (Dec. 22) ...
223
,
p. 506
Verona v. Warwick. 1871 (Dec. 24) ...
225
,
p. 507
Notre Dame de Paris. 1871
227
,
p. 503
Mr. Ruskin's Influence — a Defence. 1872 (March
15)
229
Vol. X.
p. 458
Mr. Ruskin's Influence — a Rejoinder. 1872 (March
21)
232
,,
p. 459
Modern Restorations. 1877 .....
234
Below,
p. 531
Ribbesford Church. 1877
235
M
p. 531
Circular relating to St. Mark's, Venice. 1879
237
Vol. XXIV.
p. 412
Letters relating to St. Mark's, Venice. 1879
251 n.
••
p. 423
LETTERS ON SCIENCB:
I. GEOLOGICAL.
The Conformation of the Alps. 1864 .
255
Vol. XXVI.
p. 548
Concerning Glaciers. 1864
259
,,
p. 550
English versus Alpine Geology. 1864 .
268
,,
p. 553
Concerning Hydrostatics. 1864 ....
274
,,
p. 557
James David Forbes : his real greatness. 1874 .
277
"
p. 559
II. MISCELLANEOUS.
On Reflections in Water. 1844 ....
283
Vol. III.
p. 655
On the Reflection of Rainbows. 1861 .
299
Vol. XIV.
p. 474
A Landslip near Giagnano. 1841 ....
302
Vol. I.
p. 211
304
Vol. XIII.
p. 117
On the Study of Natural History (undated) .
305
Vol. XVI.
p. 145
VOLUME II
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN
VOL. II.
X.
See above,
p. 461 n.
LETTERS ON POLITICS AND WAR :
The Italian Question. 1859.
Three Letters : June 6 3 Vol. XVIII. p. 537
June 15 12 .. P- f?*
August 1 20 P. 544
464
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
LETT
BBS ON POLITICS AND WAR: Continued:
FAOB
IN THIS EDITION
The Foreign Policy of England. 1863
23
Vol. XVIII.
P-
546
The Position of Denmark. 1864
26
,,
P.
548
The Jamaica Insurrection. 1865
30
f ,
P-
550
The Franco-Prussian War. 1870.
Two Letters: October 6 ....
34
Below,
P-
499
October 7 ....
38
,,
P-
500
Modern Warfare. 1876
43
••
P-
522
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY:
The Depreciation of Gold. 1863
53
Vol. XVII.
P-
489
The Law of Supply and Demand. 1864.
Three Letters: October 26 .
56
,,
P-
499
October 29 .
58
,,
P-
500
November 2 ...
63
, p
P-
502
Mr. Ruskin and Professor Hodgson. 1878.
Two Letters : November 8 .
64
,,
P-
503
November 15 ...
66
,,
P.
504
Strikes v. Arbitration. 1865 ....
69
, ,
!»•
506
Work and Wages. 1865.
Five Letters : April 20 ....
72
,,
P-
507
April 22 ....
75
,,
P-
509
April 29 ....
78
,,
P.
510
May 4 .
86
,,
P.
514
May 20
91
,,
P-
516
The Standard of Wages. 1867 ....
96
,,
P-
473
How the Rich spend their Money. 1873.
Three Letters : January 23 .
98
,,
P-
553
January 28 .
100
,,
P-
554
January 30 .
102
f f
P-
554
Commercial Morality. 1875 ....
105
Vol. XXVIII.
P-
271 H.
The Definition of Wealth. 1875
106
Vol. XVII.
p.
486
The Principles of Property. 1877
107
Below,
P-
533
On Co-operation. 1879-1880.
Two Letters : August, 1879
109
Vol. XXIX.
P.
414 n.
April 12, 1880
110
'.
P-
414 n.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS:
I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
Is England Big Enough ? 1868 ....
115
Vol. XVII.
P.
529
The Ownership of Railways. 1868 .
1L9
,,
P-
530
Railway Economy. 1868 .....
122
,,
P.
531
Our Railway System. 1865 ....
129
,,
P-
528
Railway Safety. 1870
131
534
II.
SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
Domestic Servants — Mastership. 1865
135
P-
518
Domestic Servants — Experience. 1865
138
,,
P-
519
Domestic Servants — Sonship and Slavery. 1865
140
,,
P-
520
Modern Houses. 1865
152
"
P-
525
III.
ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
A King's First Duty. 1871 ....
159
,
P-
547
A Nation's Defences. 1871 ....
162
,,
P-
548
The Waters of Comfort. 1871 ....
165
,,
P-
549
The Streams of Italy. 1871 ....
167
,,
P-
550
The Streets of London. 1871 ....
172
Vol. XXVIII.
p.
xvi
IV.
EDUCATION FOR RICH AND POOR.
True Education. 1868
177
Below,
P-
496
The Value of Lectures. 1874 ....
179
,,
P-
517
The Cradle of Art ! 1876
181
,,
P-
521
St. George's Museum. 1875 ....
182
Vol. XXX.
p.
305
The Morality of Field Sports. 1870
184
Below,
P-
498
Drunkenness and Crime. 1871 ....
187
,,
p.
505
Madness and Crime. 1872 ....
189
Vol. XXVIII.
P-
219
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
465
IV. EDUCATION FOB RICH AND POOR: Continued:
PAGE
IN THIS EDITION
Employment for the Destitute Poor and Criminal
Classes 1868
191
Vol. XVII.
p. 540
Notes on the General Principles of Employment
for the Destitute and Criminal Classes (a
Pamphlet). 1868
193
,,
p. 541
Blindness and Sight 1879
205
Below,
p. 540
The Eagle's Nest. 1879
206
>
p. 541
Politics in Youth. 1879
207
p 541
"Act, Act in the living present." 1873 .
208
|
p. 508
"Laborare est orarc." 1874 ....
210
f
1). 512
A Pagan Message. 1878
211
,
p. 534
The Foundations of Chivalry. 1877-1878.
Five Letters: February 8, 1877 .
212
,,
p. 527
February 10, 1877 .
214
,,
p. 528
February 11, 1877 .
216
,,
p. 529
February 12, 1877 .
218
,,
p. 530
July 3, 1878 ....
219
-
p. 530
V.
WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
Woman's Work. 1873
223
,,
p. 509
Female Franchise. 1870
225
,,
p. 499
Proverbs on Right Dress. 1862 ....
226
,,
p. 491
Sad-coloured Costumes. 1870 ....
229
,,
p. 502
Oak Silkworms. 1862
232
• -
p. 493
VI.
LITERARY CRITICISM.
The Publication of Books. 1876
235
, ,
p. 519
A Mistaken Review. 1875
238
Vol. XV.
p. 491
The Position of Critics. 1875 ....
241
Below,
p. 518
Coventry Patmore's "Faithful for Ever." 1860
243
,,
p. 488
" The Queen of the Air." 1871.
248
,,
p. 504
The Animals of Scripture : a Review. 1856
250
,,
p. 483
"Limner" and Illumination. 1854
254
Vol. XII.
p. 478
Notes on a Word in Shakespeare. 1878.
Two Letters : September ....
257
Below,
p. 535
September 29 .
258
,,
p. 535
"The Merchant of Venice." 1880 .
262
,,
p. 545
Recitations. 1880
264
••
p. 545
APPENDIX.
Letter to W. C. Bennett, LL.D. 1852
267
Letters1
Letter to Thomas Guthrie, D.D. 1853
269
Vol. XII.
p. xxx. jj.
The Sale of Mr. Windus' Pictures. 1858 .
270
Below,
p. 488
At the Play. 1867
270
Vol. XVII.
p. 333 T).
An Object of Charity. 1868 ....
271
Below,
p. 495
Excuses from Correspondence. 1868 .
272
,,
p. 651
Letter to the Author of a Review. 1872 .
273
f (
p. 508
An Oxford Protest. 1874
274
, ,
p. 653
Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Ixjwe. 1877
275
Vol. XXIX.
p. 207
The Bibliography of Ruskin. 1878.
Two Letters : September 30 .
276
Below,
p. 537
October 23 ....
276
M
p. 537
The Society of the Rose. 1879 ....
277
••
p. 537
Letter to W. H. Harrison. 1865
278
Letters l
Dramatic Reform. 1880. (Two Letters) .
279
Below,
p. 549
The Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University.
1880. (Five Letters^
282
p. 547
EPILOGUE .... . ...
285
p. 473
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN
BOTH VOLUMES ........
289
See above,
P. 461 n.
INDEX .
301
Vol. XXXVIII.
i That is, in the volumes of this edition (XXXVI. and XXXVII.) containing
Ruskin's Letters to his Friends.
466
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RUSKINIANA (1890)
In Igdrasil, the Journal of the Ruskin Reading Guild, for 1890, a
large number of pages were devoted to a collection of Ruskin's Letters,
supplementary to Arrows of the Chace. This collection, under the heading
" Ruskiniana," was contained in Nos. 3 (March), 4 (April), 5 (May),
6 (June), 7 (July), 8 (August), 9 (September), 10 (October), 11 (November),
12 (December); vol. i. pp. 81-87, 121-126, 169-170, 209-219, 249-255,
297-306, 345-350; vol. ii. pp. 11-17, 57-70, 97-105.
The collection was made by Mr. Wedderburn.
The collection was reprinted by Mr. Wedderburn with additions and
notes in a volume with the following title-page : —
Ruskiniana. | Part I. | Letters | published in, and collected from |
various sources, | and mostly reprinted in | Igdrasil 1890. | Reprinted
| for private circulation only. | 1890.
Royal 8vo, pp. viii. + 119. Half-title, p. i. ; Title-page (with imprint in
centre of the reverse — "Printed by | Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Ld., |
London and Aylesbury "), pp. iii.-iv. ; Editor's Note, p. v. ; Fly-title to
Part I., p. vii. ; Letters, with fly-title to each division, pp. 1-119. At
the foot of p. 119 the imprint is repeated (" Printed by Hazell, Watson,
& Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury").
Issued on February 6, 1891, in thick cream-coloured paper wrappers,
lettered upon the back, "Ruskiniana. Part I. — Letters"; and upon the
front cover, " Ruskiniana. | Part I." Ten copies only were printed, and
the book is thus one of the most sought after of Ruskin rarities.
The Editor's Note is as follows : —
"This part of Ruskiniana consists of letters by Mr. Ruskin, first published
in various places, but not included in, and mostly subsequently to, Arrows of the
Chace. They were almost all reprinted in Igdrasil during the year 1890, but
in this edition some notes have been added, as well as one or two letters and
passages, not given in Igdrasil. This reprint, for private circulation only, was
limited to ten copies.
"CHRISTMAS 1890."
A few misprints, errors in dates, etc. , made in Igdrasil and Ruskiniana,
have been corrected in the present edition : see, e.g. , pp. 496, 553, 558.
CONTENTS OF "RUSKINIANA," PART I. (1890)
Letters to Various Friends.
I.1 To James Hogg, January 1834 : by J. J Ruskin
2. To „ „ February 1834
3. To Samuel Rogers, May 4
4. To „ „ April 1845
5. To ,. ,, December 17, 1847
6. To „ ., July 5, 1850 .
7. To ,, ,, June 23, 1852 .
8. To Miss Mitford, Good Friday, 1853
9. To „ „ April 22, 1854 .
10. To „ „ July 29, 1854
11. To „ „ August 7, 1854 .
12. To Mrs. Hugh Miller, April 9, 1857
1 The letters, etc., are here numbered for convenience of reference.
2 That is, in the volumes of this edition (XXXVI. and XXXVII.) containing
Ruskin's Letters to his Friends.
PAGE
IN THIS EDITION
3
Vol. I. p. xxvii.
4
,, p. xxviii.
5
Letters 2
5
,,
6
()
6
7
Vol. XL p. xxv.
9
Letters
10
,,
11
,,
12
,,
13
,,
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
467
Architecture and Painting.
13. To Count Zorzi .
14. Light and Water Colours .
Minor Letter* on Art.
Turner .
Turner .
18. Miss Jay's Copies
Mr. Ward's Copies .
A Turner Trouvaille.
A Drawing Lesson .
Art in Manchester .
Sutton Palmer .
Wood -carving .
Thomas Ofrtin .
Caricature . . . .
W. J. Bunney .
Sea Pictures
30. A Chesterfield Letter .
St. George's Museum
15.
16.
17,
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29,
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
A Gift from Mr. Ruskin
The Colenso Diamond
Railways and Scenery.
38-40. Derbyshire Railways .
41, 42. Ambleside Railway
43. Footpaths ....
44. The Shores of Coniston .
45. Welsh Scenery and Scott
46. Old Folkestone
Education and Pastimes.
47- Nurseries ....
48. Modern Education .
49. Seventeenth Century Results
50. The Use of Pictures
51. Painting and Music .
52. Mr. Ruskin's Teaching
63. University Education
54. The Business of Universities
55. The Edinburgh University
56. The Basis of True Work .
57. English Sports .
58. Billiards ....
59. Amateur Chess.
Political Economy.
60. Mr. Ruskin's Views .
61. The Rights of Labour .
62. Usury and the Jews
63. The Abolition of Rent .
64. Notes on the Land Question
65. Henry George .
66. Keeping one's Money
67. Wasting it ...
68. 69. The Crime of Debt .
70. Unobjectionable Theft .
71. St. George's Farms .
72. The Chances of Reform .
73. Modern Selfishness .
Politics.
74. Ceasing to be English .
75. Mr. Ruskin on the Situation
76. Gordon and Carlyle . .
XXXIV.
PAGE
IN THIS EDITION
17
Vol. XXIV. p. 405
21
Vol. XIII. pp. 589-!
27
Below. p. 493
27
Vol. XIII. p. 555
28
p. 578
28
p. 577
29
p. 579
29
Below, p. 554
30
p. 603
30
Vol. XIV. p. 497
31
Below, p. 555
31
Vol. XIV. p. 498
32
p. 490
32
Below, p. 563
33
„ p. 564
33
35
„ p. 552
Vol. XXX. p. 316
35
„ p. 318
36
p. 319
36
p. 318
36
p. 322
36
Vol. XXVI. p. 530
87
, , p. Iv.
41
Below, p. 568
45
,, p. 603
45
p. 580
46
p. 557
46
p. 616
47
p. 610
51
p. 559
51
p. 589
52
p. 590
52
Vol. XXVII. p. Ixix.
54
Below. p. 567
54
p. 546
55
p. 556
56
p. 605
57
P. 560
57
Letters
58
Below, p. 581
58
P. 572
59
P- 573
68
p. 589
63
Vol. XVII. p. 9
63
Below, p. 497
64
p. 599
64
Vol. XXIX. p. 598
65
Below, p. 565
66
p. 592
66
p. 593
66
p. 595
67
p. 597
67
p. 619
68
,, p. 598
68
P. 611
n
p. 613
Tl
p. 678
72
„ p. 87»
2 ti
468
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Politics — continued.
MM
IN THIS EDITION
77. The Irish Question ....
. 73
Below, p. 581
78. National Penance ....
. 73
p. 596
79. A Political Ideal ....
. 73
p. 597
80. The Irish Green Book .
. 74
Vol. XIV. p. 490
81. Home Kule
. 74
Below, p. 602
82. Leadership
. 75
p. 601
83. Trafalgar Square ....
. . . 76
„ p. 612
Books and their Writers.
84-86. The Best Hundred Books .
. 79
p. 582
87. The Bible
. 84
,, p. 593
88, 89. Books which have influenced me
. 85
,, p. 605
90. To W. J. Stillman ....
. 86
Letters
91. Charles Dickens ....
. 88
Below, p. 612
92. Novels and their Endings
. 89
P- 614
93. Scott and Scotsmen.
. 90
p. 606
94. Blake's Poems
. 90
„ p. 521
95. The Life of St. Patrick .
. 91
„ p. 592
96. Short Words and Long .
. 91
p. 568
97, 98. The Crown of Wild Olive .
. 92
p. 494
99. Mr. Raskin's Lectures
. 92 Vol. XXXIII. p. 524
100. A Lecture on Birds ....
. 93
„ p. 524
101. Translators
. 93
Below, p. 615
102. The Perfection of Printing
. 94
p. 543
103. True News of Good ....
. 94
„ p. 543
104. The Pall Mall Gazette .
. 94
p. 607
105. The Value of Laziness .
95
Letters
106. The Minister's Wooing .
. 96
1 1
107- To Mrs. Beecher Stowe .
. 97
,
Miscellaneous Letters.
108. Gothic Nomenclature
, 101
Below, p. 481
109. To W. M. Thackeray
. 102
Letters
110. To a Friend
. 103
, (
111. To D. G. Rossetti ....
. 105
t ,
112-114. To G. F. Watts
. 105
Vol. XIV. pp. 471-3
115, 116. To D. D. Home
. 107
Vol. XVIII. p. 31
117. Carpaccio. To E. Burne-Jones
. 109
Vol. IV. p. 356
118. To S. C. Hall
. 109
Letters
119. To S. B. Bancroft ....
. 109
( ,
120-122. To a Friend in Italy
. 110
( ,
123. Proserpina .....
. Ill
Vol. XXV. p. xxxiv.
124. The Certainty of Revolution .
. Ill
Below, p. 544
125. George Eliot
. 112
p. 558
126-128. Excuses from Correspondence .
. 112
p. 652
129. Jumbo at the Zoo .
. 113
p. 560
130. To H. R. Barraud ....
. 113
p. 562
131. A Pennyworth of Thoughts .
. 114
,, p. 565
132. Epitaph on Osborne Gordon
. 114
p. 647
133. Epitaph on the Duke of Albany .
. 115
p. 647
134. To the Saltaire Salt Schools .
. 115
p. 563
135. Stippling
. 115
p. 577
136. To C. M. Barker ....
. 115
Letters
137. The Slade Professorship .
. 116
Vol. XXXIII. p. Ivi.
138. Absent yet Present ....
. 116
Vol. XXX. p. xxxix.
139. Darwinism .....
. 116
Below, p. 596
140. An Earthquake at Florence
. 117
p. 611
141. Christian Catholicism
. 117
Vol. XXIX. p. 92
142. Mr. Ruskin's Creed ....
. 118
Below, p. 618
143. Bicycles
. 118
p. 617
144. "From Mr. Ruskin"
. 118
p. 619
(For synopsis of the Contents of Part II.
of Rutkiniana, see
below, p. 624.)
Of the Letters enumerated in this Bibliographical Note, 142 are in-
cluded in the present volume, and 131 have been given in previous
volumes. For the source of 50 other Letters in the present volume, and
for fuller particulars in the case of all the Letters, see the separate notes
to them severally.]
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
[1880]
MY good Editor insists that this book must have an Author's
Preface ; and insists further that it shall not contain compli-
ments to him on the editorship. I must leave, therefore,
any readers who care for the book, and comprehend the
trouble that has been spent on it, to pay him their own
compliments, as the successive service of his notes may call
for them : but my obedience to his order, not in itself
easy to me, doubles the difficulty I have in doing what,
nevertheless, I am resolved to do, — pay, that is to say,
several extremely fine compliments to myself, upon the
quality of the text.
For of course I have read none of these letters since
they were first printed : of half of them I had forgotten
the contents, of some, the existence ; all come fresh to me ;
and here in Rouen, where I thought nothing could possibly
have kept me from drawing all I could of the remnants of
the old town, I find myself, instead, lying in bed in the
morning, reading these remnants of my old self, — and that
with much contentment and thankful applause.
For here are a series of letters ranging over a period of,
broadly, forty years of my life;1 most of them written
hastily, and all in hours snatched from heavier work: and
in the entire mass of them there is not a word I wish to
change, not a statement I have to retract, and, I believe,
few pieces of advice, which the reader will not find it for
his good to act upon.
With which brief preface I am, for my own part,
1 [1840-1880 in the original edition.]
469
470 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
content; but as it is one of an unusual tenour, and may
be thought by some of my friends, and all my foes, more
candid than graceful, I permit myself the apologetic egotism
of enforcing one or two of the points in which I find these
letters so well worth— their author's — reading.
In the building of a large book, there are always places
where an indulged diffuseness weakens the fancy, and pro-
longed strain subdues the energy : when we have time to
say all we wish, we usually wish to say more than enough ;
and there are few subjects we can have the pride of
exhausting, without wearying the listener. But all these
letters wei*e written with fully provoked zeal, under strict
allowance of space and time : they contain the choicest and
most needful things I could within narrow limits say, out
of many contending to be said ; expressed with deliberate
precision ; and recommended by the best art I had in illus-
tration br emphasis. At the time of my life in which most
of them were composed, I was fonder of metaphor, and
more fertile in simile, than I am now ; and I employed
both with franker trust in the reader's intelligence. Care-
fully chosen, they are always a powerful means of concen-
tration ; and I could then dismiss in six words, " thistledown
without seeds, and bubbles without colour,"1 forms of art
on which I should now perhaps spend half a page of ana-
lytic* vituperation; and represent, with a pleasant accuracy
which my best methods of outline and exposition could now
no more achieve, the entire system of modern plutocratic
policy, under the luckily remembered image of the Arabian
bridegroom, bewitched with his heels uppermost.2
It is to be remembered also that many of the subjects
handled can he more conveniently treated controversially,
than directly ; the answer to a single question may he made
clearer than a statement which endeavours to anticipate
many; and the crystalline vigour of a truth is often best
seen in the course of its serene collision with a trembling
1 [In a letter now printed in Vol. XIV. p. 330.]
2 [In a letter of 1866 : see in this edition, Vol. XVII. p. 523.]
a
-
X
O
w
X
E?
X
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 471
and dissolving fallacy. But there is a deeper reason than
any such accidental ones for the quality of this book. Since
the letters cost me, as aforesaid, much trouble ; since they
interrupted me in pleasant work which was usually liable
to take harm by interruption ; and since they were likely
almost, in the degree of their force, to be refused by the
editors of the adverse journals, I never was tempted into
writing a word for the public press, unless concerning
matters which I had much at heart. And the issue is,
therefore, that the two following volumes contain very
nearly the indices of everything I have deeply cared for
during the last forty years ; while not a few of their political
notices relate to events of more profound historical import-
ance than any others that have occurred during the period
they cover ; and it has not been an uneventful one.
Nor have the events been without gravity ; the greater,
because they have all been inconclusive. Their true con-
clusions are perhaps nearer than any of us apprehend ; and
the part I may be forced to take in them, though I am
old, — perhaps I should rather say, became I am old, — will,
as far as I can either judge or resolve, be not merely
literary.
Whether I am spared to put into act anything here
designed for my country's help, or am shielded by death
from the sight of her remediless sorrow, I have already
done for her as much service as she has will to receive,
by laying before her facts vital to her existence, and un-
alterable by her power, in words of which not one has
been warped by interest nor weakened by fear ; l and which
are as pure from selfish passion as if they were spoken
already out of another world.
J. RUSKIN.
ROUEN, St. Firming Day, 1880.2
1 [Compare the Preface to vol. v. of Modern Painters (Vol. VII. p. 10).]
8 [September 25. For St. Firmin, see Bible of Amiens (Vol. XXXIII.), on which
book Ruskin was now engaged.]
EPILOGUE
[1880]
I FIND my immitigable Editor insists on epilogue as well
as prologue from his submissive Author ; which would have
fretted me a little, since the last letter of the series1
appears to me a very pretty and comprehensive sum of
the matters in the book, had not the day on which, as
Fors would have it, I am to write its last line, brought to
my mind something of importance which I forgot to say
in the preface ; nor will it perhaps be right to leave wholly
without explanation the short closing letter to which I
have just referred.
It should be observed that it was written to the Pre-
sident of the Liberal party of the Glasgow students, in
answer to the question which I felt to be wholly irrelevant
to the business in hand, and which could not have been
answered in anything like official terms with anything short
of a forenoon's work. I gave the answer, therefore, in my
own terms, not in the least petulant, but chosen to convey
as much information as I could in the smallest compass ;
and carrying it accurately facetted and polished on the
angles.
For instance, I never, under any conditions of provoca-
tion or haste, would have said that I hated Liberalism as
I did Mammon, or Belial, or Moloch. I chose the milder
fiend of Ekron, as the true exponent and patron of Liberty,
the God of Flies ; 2 and if my Editor, in final kindness, can
refer the reader to the comparison of the House-fly and
1 [See now, pp. 548-549.]
1 [2 Kings i. 2 : compare Vol. IV. p. 191, Vol. XXII. p. 532, Vol. XXV. p. 40.]
473
474 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
House-dog, in (he, and not I, must say where1) the letter
will have received all the illustration which I am minded
to give it. I was only surprised that after its publication,
of course never intended, though never forbidden by me,
it passed with so little challenge, and was, on the whole,
understood as it was meant.
The more important matter I have to note in closing,
is the security given to the conclusions arrived at in many
subjects treated of in these letters, in consequence of the
breadth of the basis on which the reasoning is founded.
The multiplicity of subject, and opposite directions of in-
vestigation, which have so often been alleged against me,
as if sources of weakness, are in reality, as the multiplied
buttresses of the apse of Amiens, as secure in allied result
as they are opposed in direction. Whatever (for instance) I
have urged in economy has ten times the force when it is
remembered to have been pleaded for by a man loving the
splendour, and advising the luxury of ages which overlaid
their towers with gold, and their walls with ivory. No
man, oftener than I, has had cast in his teeth the favourite
adage of the insolent an4 the feeble — " ne sutor." s But it
has always been forgotten by the speakers that, although
the proverb might on some occasions be wisely spoken by
an artist to a cobbler, it could never be wisely spoken by a
cobbler to an artist.
J. RUSKIN.
AMIENS, St. Crispin's Day, 1880.8
1 [See The Cettus of Aglaia, §§ 74, 75 (Vol. XIX. p. 123).]
2 [See j»bove, p. 255 p.]
* [October 26.]
CONTENTS
In the present List of Contents, the Letters are arranged under subjects.
In the pages which follow, they are arranged in their chronological
order, as explained above (p. 46 1 n.), and a list of them in that order
has already been given (pp. xi.-xvi.).
ARCHITECTURE : —
PAGE
HISTORICAL NOMENCLATURE FOR ENGLISH GOTHIC (1851) . . 481
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS (1871) ....... 503
THE GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHI-
TECTS (TWO LETTERS, 1874) . . . . . .513
ART (see also " Turner ") : —
"THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE": A LETTER AND A REVIEW (1854) 482
THE W. J. BUNNEY MEMORIAL FUND (1883) .... 563
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK (TWO LETTERS, 1884) .... 565
THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES (1880) ...... 542
RAPHAEL FOR LIVERPOOL: THE COLONNA MADONNA (1873) . . 512
SEA PICTURES (1883) ........ 564
ART AND SMOKE (1876) ........ 521
STIPPLING (1884) ... 577
WHISTLER V. RUSKIN (1880) ....... 544
THE WINDUS SALE (1859) 488
WOOD-CARVING (TWO LETTERS, 1881, 1882) .... 555
ART TEACHING: —
ART-TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE (1866) .... 490
ART IN MANCHESTER (1887) . . . . . . . 603
A CHESTERFIELD LETTER (THREE LETTERS, 1880) . . .551
TO THE DERBY SCHOOL OF ART (1873) . . . . .510
A DRAWING LESSON (1881 ?) 554
PICTURES FOR THE POOR (1886?) ...... 600
RULES OF PERSPECTIVE (1884) . . . . . . .573
475
476 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
AUTHOR: HIS BOOKS: —
PAGE
"THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE" (TWO LETTERS, 1866) . . 494
"THE EAGLE'S NEST" (1879) • • • • • • .541
"FORS CLAVIGERA" (1871, 1879) 505
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR*' (1871, 1880) .... 504,551
TO A REVIEWER OF HIS WORKS (1872) . . . 508
HIS METHODS OF PUBLICATION (1875) . . . . .519
SHEPHERD'S "BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN" (TWO LETTERS, 1878) . 537
FOREIGN TRANSLATIONS (1888, 1896) 615
THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE: GLASGOW RUSKIN SOCIETY (1879) • 539
RUSKIN'S TEACHING (1880) ....... 546
"MR. RUSKIN'S VIEWS" (1886) ....... 589
AUTHOR: PERSONALIA: —
PHOTOGRAPHS (1882) 562
THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY SOCIETIES (1882) .... 560
THE SALTAIRE SALT SCHOOLS (1883) ...... 563
HIS ILLNESSES (1886) ........ 598
TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN (1886) ...... 599
A MEDAL FROM THE PRINCE OF MANTUA (1887) .... 56l
•''MR. RUSKIN'S CREED" (1889) ....... 618
ST. GEORGE'S FARMS (1889) ....... 619
RUSKIN HALL (1899) • 622
BOOKS AND TJIEIR WRITERS, READING, ETC. : —
THE BIBLE (1886) . 593
WILLIAM BLAKE'S POEMS (1876). . . . . . .521
DICKENS (1888) 612
GEORGE ELIOT (1881) ........ 558
EMERSON (1883) 563
CHARLES KINGSLEY (1887) ....... 609
GERALD MASSEY*S POEMS (1869). ...... 497
COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER" (I860) . . . 488
SCOTT AND SCOTSMEN (1887) ....... 606
SCOTT: "WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE" (1885) .... 577
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE (TWO LETTERS, 1878) . . 535
SYDNEY SMITH (1883) 564
ADVICE TO A READER (1886) ....... 589
CONTENTS
BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, READING, ETC. : Continued : —
THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS (THREE LETTERS, 1886)
477
PAGE
. 582
BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME (TWO LETTERS, 1887) . . 605
CHEAP BOOKS (TWO LETTERS, 1884, 1887). . . . 576, 6lO
NOVELS AND THEIR ENDINGS (1888) ...... 6l4
THE POSITION OF CRITICS (1875) . . . . . .518
THE READING OF NONSENSE (1879) ...... 540
SHORT WORDS AND LONG (1881) . . . . . . 558
CHARITY : —
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY (1868) ....... 496
THE BLIND (1871) 505
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT (1879) ....... 540
ECONOMICS : —
THE ABOLITION OF RENT (1886) ...... 599
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY (1877) ..... 533
UNOBJECTIONABLE THEFT (1886) ...... 597
USURY AND INTEREST (1885) ....... 579
USURY AND THE JEWS (1868) ....... 497
EDUCATION (see also "Art Teaching"): —
TRUE EDUCATION (1868) ........ 496
MODERN EDUCATION (1886) ....... 589
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RESULTS (1886) ..... 590
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION (1881). . . . . . .556
THE BUSINESS OF UNIVERSITIES (1887) ..... 605
THE SLADE PROFESSORSHIP AT OXFORD (1874) . . . .518
A GENTLE SCHOLAR (1876) . . . . . . . 525
PAINTING AND MUSIC (1884) ....... 567
THE TEACHING OF SINGING (1877) ...... 532
THE VALUE OF LECTURES (1874) . . . . . .517
ETHICS : —
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY (FIVE LETTERS, 1877, 1878) . 526
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY (1875) ...... 520
A CHRISTIAN'S DUTY (1886) . . . . . . 594
THE CRIME OF DEBT (TWO LETTERS, 1886) .... 595
MODERN SELFISHNESS (1887) . . . . . . .611
478 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
GAMES AND SPORTS :— -
PAGE
THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS (1870) 498
BILLIARDS (1884) 572
AMATEUR CHESS (FOUR LETTERS, 1884, 1885) .... 573
MODERN ENGLISH SPORTS (1885) ...... 580
BICYCLES (1888) 617
JOURNALISM : —
TRUE NEWS OF GOOD (1880) ....... 543
THE FUNCTION OF THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE" (1887) . . 607
JOURNALISM (1888) 617
"THE CHURCH REFORMER" (1884) ... . 567
ART CRITICISM (1884) ........ 576
MESSAGES : —
"ACT, ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT*' (1872) .... 509
"LABORARE EST ORARE" (1873.) ...... 512
A PAGAN MESSAGE (1877) ..,...,. 534
COUNSEL TO YOUNG SCOTS (1881) ...... 553
POLITICS (see also "Economics"): —
FEMALE FRANCHISE (1870) ....... 499
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR (TWO LETTERS, J870) . , . 499
COMING CATASTROPHE (1871). . . . . , , 504
DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME (1871) : • • ? • • ^05
POLITICS IN YOUTH (1879) ....... 541
THE CERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION (}880) , . , . . 544
THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASOftW UNIVERSITY (FIVE LETTERS, 1880) 547
HENRY GEORGE AND LAND REFORM (1884). , 565
GORDON AND THE SOUDAN (February 19, J885) . . . 578
GORDON AND CARLYLE (1885) ....... 579
THE IRISH QUESTION (1886) ....... 581
NATIONAL PENANCE (1886) ....... 596
A POLITICAL IDEAL (1886) ........ 597
THE CHANCES OF REFORM (1886) ...... 598
LEADERSHIP (1887) 601
HOME RULE (1887) 602
THE TRAFALGAR SQUARE RIOTS (1887) . . . , . 6l2
CEASING TO BE ENGLISH (1888) 6l3
CONTENTS 479
PRESERVATION OF SCENERY AND ANCIENT BUILDINGS : —
PAGE
THE CASTLE ROCK, EDINBURGH (TWO LETTERS, 1857) . . . 484
CASTLES AND KENNELS (1871) . . . 1 i ; 1 506
VERONA V. WARWICK (1871) . . . . . ; 507
MODERN RESTORATION (1877) : ; : . < . ; 531
RIBBESFORD CHURCH (1877) ...;... 531
THE SHORES OF CONISTON (1881) ;;;.*. 557
THE DESTRUCTION OF FOOTPATHS (1885) i . ; 580
THE LAKE DISTRICT (1887) ..... i : 604
OLD FOLKESTONE (1887) ........ 6lO
THE FALLS OF FOYERS (1895) ....... 621
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL (1896) • • • i . .621
RAILWAYS : —
THE DORE AND CHINLEY LINE, DERBYSHIRE (THREE LETTERS,
1884) 568
THE PROJECTED AMBLESIDE RAILWAY (TWO LETTERS, 1887) . . 603
STAGE : —
IRVING'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE" (1880) ..... 545
THE MISSES WEBLING'S RECITATIONS (1880) .... 545
DRAMATIC REFORM (TWO LETTERS, 1880) ..... 549
TURNER : —
TURNER AND CLAUDE (1863) ....... 493
THE WINDMILL AND LOCK, "LIBER STUDIORUM " (1873) . . 510
RAWLINSON'S CATALOGUE OF "LIBER STUDIORUM" (1878) . . 538
A NEWLY DISCOVERED TURNER (1884) ..... 567
WAR:—
MODERN WARFARE (1876) ........ 522
WOMEN AND DRESS : —
WOMAN'S WORK (1873) . . 509
NURSERIES (1881) . 559
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS (I8t)2) ... . . 491
SAD-COLOURED COSTUMES (1870) ...... 502
480 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
MISCELLANEOUS : —
PAGE
OAK SILKWORMS (1862) ........ 493
AUTOGRAPH COLLECTORS (1867) ....... 495
LIFE IN GLASGOW (1877) 534
THE PERFECTION OF PRINTING (1880) ..... 543
JUMBO AT THE ZOO (1882) ....... 560
A PENNYWORTH OF THOUGHTS (1883) ..... 565
THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK (1886) ...... 592
KEEPING ONE'S MONEY (1886) ....... 592
WASTING IT (1886) 593
DARWINISM (1886) ......... 595
LIFE ASSURANCE (1887) ........ 600
AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A MAN MARRY? (1887) .... 609
AN EARTHQUAKE AT FLORENCE (1887) . . . . .611
WELSH SCENERY (1888) ........ 6l6
THE SCENERY OF SCOTT (1888). ...... 6l6
THE ALPS (1889) 617
THE WELSH LANGUAGE (1889) . • • • . • . 620
FROM THE AUTHOR OF " MUNERA PULVERIS " (1889) • • • 6l 8
ICELANDIC INDUSTRIES (1890) ....... 620
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
A HISTORICAL NOMENCLATURE FOR ENGLISH GOTHIC
[The proposed nomenclature, discussed in the letter, sufficiently appears in a
note which Ruskin wrote to his father from Venice (October 19, 1851) on the
subject : —
" Looking over some of the papers you have sent me in your last letters,
I find the extract from the Builder — which you sent, and I glanced at,
merely for the use made of my name — to be a very interesting proposal
by Mr. Garbett for the introduction of a new nomenclature for English
Gothic, — namely, that instead of descriptive names, like ' Perpendicular/
' Lancet,' ' Decorated,' and the like, it should receive historical names,
' Edwardian,' ' Lancastrian,' etc., to fit in with the now universally
received 'Norman,' 'Saxon,' 'Tudor,' and the old classical 'Corinthian,'
'Doric,' 'Ionic.'
" The innovation I think admirable ; it will make all nomenclature
consistent ; and will be a great help to people in connecting styles with
national character. I therefore mean to send a single line either to-morrow
or next day, expressing my entire concurrence in the proposal, for you
to send to the Builder — concurrence I mean in the principle of the
proposal ; whether ' Edwardian ' or ' Lancastrian ' be the best terms, I
do not take on me to decide."
Ruskin's father duly forwarded the letter, which appeared in the Builder, November 1,
1851 (vol. ix. p. 686) ; it was reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 97,
and thence in the privately-issued Ruskiniana, part L, 1890, p. 102 (No. 108).]
To the Editor of the "Builder"
VENICE [October 1851].
In your number for 4th of October, there is a proposal by Mr. Garbett
to introduce a historical, instead of descriptive nomenclature, for English
Gothic. The discussion to which it must have given rise will probably
be nearly over by the time you receive this; but I should be glad if
you would permit me, though thus late, to express in your columns my
entire concurrence in Mr. Garbett's views, and my hope that his suggestion
may be quickly and generally acted upon. I am not sure that the names
he proposes are the best which could be chosen, but I am very sure that
the principle is right, and that the adoption of a nomenclature of this
kind would not only put an end to innumerable vain disputes and harm-
ful obscurities of expression, but help the general public to a better under-
standing of the relation of art to the political circumstances of nations.
I see there is fault found, in the same paper, with my way of
481
482 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
talking of Orders.1 I will render reason for this elsewhere, having time
at present only to fulfil a neglected duty towards another of your corre-
spondents. Several months ago,2 some plumber or glazier3 was trying, in
your columns, to defend the modern practices of marbling, graining, and
such other lying ornamentation, from what I had alleged against them,
when one of the ablest of your correspondents took up the good cause
and answered him so thoroughly, handling several parts of the subject
much better than I had bfeen able to do, that I have ever since
had it in my mind to request you to convey my thanks to him for his
defence, not of me or my sayings, but of most important truth. I have
not your paper by me here> and cannot, therefore, say in what numbers
the discussion appeared; but your readers will probably remember it, or,
if not, will find it worth the trouble of a little search.
j.
"THll ANIMALS OF SC&IPTURE"
[The full title of the book, dealt with in this letter and review, is Twenty
Photograph*; being illustrations of Scripture. By an Animal Painter; with Notes
by a Naturalist. Imperial 4to. Edinburgh : Constable, 1854. The work was re-
printed, with engravings of the photographs, in Good Words for 1861 ; and a new
edition (revised) appeared in 1886 under the title Bible Beasts and Birds: a New
Edition of " Illustrations of Scripture by an Animal Painter." This new edition omitted
two of the original illustrations (adding four others) and the Naturalist's Notes. The
"animal painter" was Mrs. Hugh Blackburn (nee Jemima Wedderburn), named in
Preeterita, ii. § 208. An account of her life and work is given in VoL ii> pp. 394-
408 of Ellen C. Clayton's English Female Artitts (1876). The "Naturalist" (chosen
by the publisher) was James Wilson, a brother of " Christopher North."]
1 [Mr. Garbett, in the paper referred to by Raskin (Builder, 1851, p. 619), had
said : " I submit that the ancients followed the right method of nomenclature for
our art> in naming their styles of it, Corinthian, lonic> etc., which the shallow
conceit of moderns has affected to improve into ' Foliaged,' ' Voluted,' ' Massy-
Capitalled,' etc., as if their differences consisted in this or that number being deco-
rated thus or thus. Ahy one with the smallest perception of the wonderful
completeness, all-pervading character, and immiscibility of the different Grecian
orders, must be astounded to see so true an amateur as Kuskiu treating them as
if all their difference resided in their capitals." For Ruskiu's classification of
orders according to their capitals, see Stones of Venice, vol. i. (Vol. IX. pp. 141
(§ 13), 379-380, 426). He reasoned further of the matter in the succeeding
volumes: see, e.g., Vol. X. p. 291 n., Vol. XI. p. 119.]
* [The reference is to an account, in the Builder of January 18, 1851 (vol. ix.
pp. 40, 41), of a paper by Mr. William Ballantine "On Ornamental Art as appli-
cable to the internal decoration of houses," in which he defended " the system of
painting in imitation of woods and marbles whicli a recent high authority Had
condemned." The reference is to Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. pp. 75 seq. Mr.
Ballantine was answered in the Builder of February 1 (pp. 71-72) in a paper, in
defence of Ruskin, signed " Calotect." A rejoinder from Mr. Ballantine (February 8,
p. 93) closed the discussion.]
3 [Here the editor of the Builder appended the following footnote : —
" Mr. Ballantine and those who know him well will, we have ho doubt,
excuse us for allowing Mr. Ruskin to choose his$ own mode of exprfcs-
.— ED."]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 483
1. A LETTER TO THE ARTIST 1 j-1854]
DEAR MRS. BLACKBURN, — I have your book, and am much pleased with
it. It is very impressive, and in many respects delightfully original. I like
Jezebel2 better than I expected — only she needn't have had quite such a
broad foot — and I like Pharaoh's frowning at the sea — and I like the little
girl who don't like Frogs — and I like Lazarus (perhaps the best of all),
and I like the ape talking to the peacock about his tail, and I like in-
tensely the swallow and the stork.
But how in the world could you poke the best-beloved Ass into the
stable with ' the Ox ? Of all the beasts, she should have been first. You
should have put her with her colt at the meeting of the two ways. And
how in the world could you miss the Serpent ?
Bill with his sticks is delightful.3 I had not caught the idea of the
crown of thorns. I wish you had written the illustrations yourself — you
know the printer would have put the spelling to rights. I cannot get you
inventive people to explain your own notions in a plain way to the public.
I am writing something about the book. Would you ask your publisher
No : I'll manage it myself. Best regards to your husband.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
2. A REVIEW * 1855
Among the various illustrated works which usually grace the beginning
of the year, has appeared one which, though of graver and less attractive
character than its companions, is likely to occupy a more permanent place
on the library shelves. We allude to Illustrations of Scripture, by an Animal
Painter, a work which, whatever its faults or weaknesses, shows at least
a singular power of giving reality and interest to scenes which are apt to
be but feebly, if at all, brought before the mental vision, in consequence
of our familiarity with the words which describe them. The idea of the
work is itself sufficiently original. The animals are throughout principal,
and the pathos or moral of the passage to be illustrated is developed from
these apparently subordinate parts in it. Thus the luxury and idolatry of
the reign of Solomon are hinted behind a group of " apes and peacocks " ; 5
the Deluge is subordinate to the dove ; and the healing of the lunatic at
Gennesareth to the destruction of the herd of swine.
1 [This letter was first printed in English Female Artists, 1876, pp. 403-404; it
was reprinted on p. vii. of Bible Beasts and Birds, 1886. A few corrections (from
the original letter) have been made in the present text.]
3 [A picture (No. 10 in ed. 1) illustrating the words, "In the portion of Jezreel
shall dogs eat of the flesh of Jezebel." The following references are to Plates 6,
5, 20, 9, 14, 15.]
3 [The reference is to Plate 3 (the ram caught in a thicket), in which is a lad
(for which one of Mrs. Blackburn's sons stood model) carrying a bundle of sticks,
while the thorny thicket in which the ram is caught is drawn so as to suggest the
crown of thorns.]
4 [From the Morning Chronicle, January 20, 1855. Reprinted in the Evening
Journal, January 22 ; and in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. ii. pp. 250-253.]
8 [1 Kings x. 22.]
XXXIV. 2 H
484 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
In general, to approach an object from a new point of view is to place
it in a clearer light, and perhaps the very strangeness of the treatment in
some cases renders the subject more impressive than it could have been
made by any more regular method of conception. But, at all events,
supposing the studies of the artist to have been chiefly directed to animals,
and her power to lie principally in seizing their character, she is to be
thanked for filling her sketches of the inferior creatures with so much
depth of meaning, and rendering the delineation even of an ape, or a
swallow, suggestive of the most solemn trains of thought.
As so suggestive, without pretence or formalism, these drawings deserve
a place of peculiar honour in the libraries of the young, while there are
also some qualities in them which fit them for companionship with more
elaborate works of art. The subject of " Lazarus " is treated with a
courage and tenderness which say much for the painter's imagination,
and more for her heart ; and the waste of waters above which the raven
hovers is expressed, though rudely, yet in a way which tells of many an
hour spent in watching the play of the evening light upon the movement
of the wearied sea. It is true that most of the compositions are weakened
by a very visible contempt, if not ignorance, of the laws which regulate
the harmonies of shade, as well as by a painful deficiency in the drawing.
Still there is a life and sincerity in them which are among the rarest
qualities in art ; and one characteristic, very remarkable in the works of
a person described in the text (we doubt not, much against her will) as
an "accomplished lady"1 — we mean the peculiar tendency to conceptions
of fearfulness, or horror, rather than of beauty. The camel, for instance,
might, we should have thought, as easily, and to many persons much more
pleasingly, have illustrated the meeting of Rebekah with the servant of
Abraham, as the desolation of Kabbah ; and the dog might as gracefully
have been brought forward to remind us of the words of the Syro-Pho2nician
woman, as to increase the horror of the death of Jezebel.2 There are
curious evidences of a similar disposition in some of the other plates ;
and while it appears to us indicative of the strength of a mind of no
common order, we would caution the fair artist against permitting it to
appear too frequently. It renders the series of drawings in some degree
repulsive to many persons, and even by those who can sympathise with it,
might sometimes be suspected of having its root in a sublime kind of
affectation.
We have spoken of these studies as drawings. They are, in fact, as
good, being photographic facsimiles of the original sketches. The text is
copious, and useful as an elucidation of the natural history of Scripture.
EDINBURGH CASTLE
[This and the following letter were addressed to the editor of the Witness
(Edinburgh), in which paper they appeared on September 16 and 30, 1857. Re-
printed in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. pp. 214-216, 217-222.]
1 [In the "Prefatory Note" signed " J. W."]
a [For the Bible references here, see Genesis xxiv. ; 2 Samuel xi., xii. ; Mark
vii. 26; 2 Kings ix.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 485
To the Editor of the " Witness "
(1)
DUNBAR, 1-ith September, 1857.
MY DEAR SIR, — As I was leaving Edinburgh this morning,1 I heard a
report which gave me more concern than I can easily express, and very
sufficiently spoiled the pleasure of my drive here. If there be no truth
in the said report, of course take no notice of this letter; but if there
be real grounds for my fears, I trust you will allow me space in your
columns for a few words on the subject.
The whisper — I hope I may say, the calumny — regarded certain pro-
ceedings which are taking place at the Castle. It was said to be the
architect's intention to cut down into the brow of the Castle rock, in order
to afford secure foundation for some new buildings.2
Now, the Castle rock of Edinburgh is, as far as I know, simply the
noblest in Scotland conveniently approachable by any creatures but sea-gulls
or peewits. Ailsa and the Bass are of course more wonderful ; and, I
suppose, in the West Highlands there are masses of crag more wild and
fantastic ; but people only go to see these once or twice in their lives,
while the Castle Rock has a daily influence in forming the taste, or
kindling the imagination, of every promising youth in Edinburgh. Even
irrespectively of its position, it is a mass of singular importance among
the rocks of Scotland. It is not easy to find among your mountains a
" craig " of so definite a form, and on so magnificent a scale. Among the
central hills of Scotland, from Ben Wyvis to the Lammermuirs, I know
of none comparable to it ; while, besides being bold and vast, its bars of
basalt are so nobly arranged, and form a series of curves at once so
majestic and harmonious, from the turf at their base to the roots of the
bastions, that, as long as your artists have that crag to study, I do not
see that they need casts from Michael Angelo, or any one else, to teach
them the laws of composition or the sources of sublimity.
But if you once cut into the brow of it, all is over. Disturb, in any
single point, the simple lines in which the walls now advance and recede
upon the tufted grass of its summit, and you may as well make a quarry
of it at once, and blast away rock, Castle, and all. It admits of some
question whether the changes made in the architecture of your city of late
years are in every case improvements ; but very certainly you cannot im-
prove the architecture of your volcanic crags by any explosive retouches.
And your error will be wholly irremediable. You may restore Trinity
Chapel,3 or repudiate its restoration, at your pleasure, but there will be no
need to repudiate restoration of the Castle rock. You cannot re-face nor
re-rivet that, nor order another in a " similar style." It is a dangerous
1 [For Raskin's tour in Scotland in 1857, see Vol. VII. p. xxv., and Preeterita,
iii. § 11.]
1 [A new armoury was to be added to the Castle.]
1 [The reference is to Trinity College Church, one of the parish churches of
Edinburgh since the Reformation, a fine building of late Gothic founded by Mary
of Gueldres, widow of James II. of Scotland, in 1462. It had been pulled down
in 1845 to make way for the North British Railway. After much discussion, and
long legal proceedings, it was rebuilt in 1871-1872, part of the old being incor-
porated in the new church.]
486 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
kind of engraving which you practise on so large a jewel. But I trust I
am wasting my time in writing of this : I cannot believe the report, nor
think that the people of Edinburgh, usually so proud of their city, are yet
so unaware of what constitutes its chief nobleness, and so utterly careless
of the very features of its scenery, which have been the means of the
highest and purest education to their greatest men, as to allow this rock
to be touched. If the works are confined to the inside of the wall, no
harm will be done ; but let a single buttress, or a single cleft, encumber
or divide its outer brow, and there is not a man of sensibility or sense in
Edinburgh who will not blush and grieve for it as long as he lives.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
PENBITH, 27th September [1857].
MY DEAR SIR, — I see by some remarks in the Literary Gazette1 on the
letter of mine to which you gave a place in your columns of the l6th,
that the design of the proposed additions to Edinburgh Castle is receiving
really serious consideration. Perhaps, therefore, a few words respecting the
popular but usually unprofitable business of castle-building may be of some
interest to your readers. We are often a little confused in our ideas re-
specting the nature of a castle — properly so called. A " castle " is a forti-
fied dwelling-house containing accommodation for as many retainers as are
needed completely to defend its position. A "fortress" is a fortified military
position, generally understood to be extensive enough to contain large bodies
of troops. And a "citadel," a fortified military position connected with a
fortified town, and capable of holding out even if the town were taken.
It is as well to be clear on these points : for certain conditions of archi-
tecture are applicable and beautiful in each case, according to the use and
character of the building ; and certain other conditions are in like manner in-
applicable and ugly, because contrary to its character, and unhelpful to its use.
Now this helpfulness and unhelpfulness in architectural features depends,
of course, primarily on the military practice of the time ; so that forms
which were grand, because rational, before gunpowder was invented, are
ignoble, because ridiculous, in days of shell and shot. The very idea and
possibility of the castle proper have passed away with the arms of the
Middle Ages. A man's house might be defended by his servants against a
troop of cavalry, if its doors were solid and its battlements pierced. But
it cannot be defended against a couple of field-pieces, whatever the thick-
ness of its oak, or number of its arrow-slits.
I regret, as much as any one can regret, the loss of castellated archi-
tecture properly so called. Nothing can be more noble or interesting than
the true thirteenth or fourteenth century castle, when built in a difficult
position, its builder taking advantage of every inch of ground to gain more
room, and of every irregularity of surface for purposes of outlook and
defence ; so that the castle sate its rock as a strong rider sits his horse, —
* [The Literary Gazette of September 26, 1857, after quoting a great part of
the previous letter, stated that the new armoury was not to be built without all
due regard to the preservation of the rock, and that there was therefore no real
cause for alarm.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 487
fitting its limbs to every writhe of the flint beneath it; and fringing the
mountain promontory far into the sky with the wild crests of its fantastic
battlements. Of such castles we can see no more ; and it is just because
I know them well and love them deeply that I say so. I know that their
power and dignity consists, just as a soldier's consists, in their knowing
and doing their work thoroughly; in their being advanced on edge or
lifted on peak of crag, not for show nor pride, but for due guard and
outlook; and that all their beautiful irregularities and apparent caprices
of form are in reality their fulfilments of need, made beautiful by their
compelled association with the wild strength and grace of the natural
rock. All attempts to imitate them now are useless, — mere girl's play.
Mind, I like girl's play, and child's play, in its place, but not in the
planning of military buildings. Child's play in many cases is the truest
wisdom. I accept to the full the truth of those verses of Wordsworth's l
beginning : —
"Who fancied what a pretty sight
This rock would be, if edged around
With living snowdrops ? — circlet bright !
How glorious to this orchard ground !
Was it the humour of a child?" etc.
But I cannot apply the same principles to more serious matters, and
vary the reading of the verses into application to the works on Edinburgh
Castle, thus: —
"Who fancied what a pretty sight
This rock would be, if edged around
With tiny turrets, pierced and light,
How glorious to this warlike ground ! "
Therefore, though I do not know exactly what you have got to do in
Edinburgh Castle, whatever it may be, I am certain the only right way
to do it is the plain way. Build what is needed, — chapel, barracks, or
dwelling-house, — in the best places, in a military point of view, of dark
stone, and bomb-proof, keeping them low, and within the existing line
of ramparts. This is the rational thing to do ; and the inhabitants of
Edinburgh will find it in the end the picturesque thing. It would be so
under any circumstances ; but it is especially so in this instance ; for the
grandeur of Edinburgh Castle depends eminently on the great, unbroken,
yet beautifully varied parabolic curve in which it descends from the Round
Tower on the Castle Hill to the terminating piece of impendent precipice
on the north. It is the last grand feature of Edinburgh left as yet un-
injured. You have filled up your valley with a large chimney, a Mound,
and an Institution ; broken in upon the Old Town with a Bank, a Col-
lege, and several fires ; dwarfed the whole of Princes Street by the Scott
1 [" Poems of the Fancy," xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines after the
fourth : —
"Who loved the little rock, and set
Upon its head this coronet?"
The second stanza then begins, "Was it the humour of a child?" etc. For other
references to the poem, see above, p. 323.]
488 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Monument; and cut Arthur's Seat in half by the Queen's Drive.1 It only
remains for you to spoil the curve of your Castle, and your illustrations
of the artistic principle of breadth will be complete.
It may appear at first that I depart from the rule of usefulness I have
proposed, in entreating for the confinement of all buildings undertaken
within the existing ramparts, in order to preserve the contour of the out-
side rock. But I presume that in the present state of military science,
and of European politics, Edinburgh Castle is not a very important military
position ; and that to make it a serviceable fortress or citadel, many
additional works would be required, seriously interfering with the con-
venience of the inhabitants of the New Town, and with the arrangements
of the Railroad Company. And, as long as these subordinate works are
not carried out, I do not see any use in destroying your beautiful rock,
merely to bring another gun to bear, or give accommodation to another
company. But I both see, and would earnestly endeavour to advocate, the
propriety of keeping the architecture of the building within those ramparts
masculine and simple in style, and of not allowing a mistaken conception
of picturesqueness to make a noble fortress look like a child's toy.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THE SALE OF MR. WINDUS'S PICTURES
[From the Times, March 29, 1859. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii.
p. 270. The sale was at Christie's on March 26, 1859. For Mr. Windus, see
Vol. I. p. 234 »., and Prceterita, ii. § 11.]
To the Editor of the « Times "
DENMARK HILT,, March 28 [1859].
SIR, — Will you oblige me by correcting an error in your account given
this morning of the sale of Mr. Windus's pictures on Saturday, in which
the purchase of Mr. Millais's picture " Pot Pourri " 2 is attributed to me ?
I neither purchased Mr. Millais's picture, nor any other picture at that sale.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER"
[From the Critic, October 27, 1860. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii.
pp. 243-247 ; and in Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore, by Basil
Champneys, 1900, vol. ii. pp. 280-282.]
To the Editor of the "Critic"
DENMARK HILL [October, I860].
SIR, — I do not doubt, from what I have observed of the general tone
of the criticisms in your columns, that, in candour and courtesy, you will
1 [For other references, see — to "the Mound/' Vol. XII. p. 64; to the Institu-
tion, Vol. XII. p. 47 ; to the College, Vol. IX. p. 249 ; to Scott's monument,
Vol. XIII. p. 465 ; and to Arthur's Seat, Vol. I. pp. 258-259.]
3 [Painted in 1856 (see Life and Letters of Millais, vol. i. p. 306) ; afterwards
in the collection of Mr. G. Boyce.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 489
allow me to enter protest, bearing such worth as private opinion may,
against the estimate expressed in your last number of the merits of Mr.
C. Patmore's new poem.1 It seems to me that you have read it hastily ;
and that you have taken such view of it as on a first reading almost every
reader of good but impatient judgment would be but too apt to concur
with you in adopting — one, nevertheless, which, if you examine the poem
with care, you will, I think, both for your readers' sake and Mr. Patmore's,
regret having expressed so decidedly.
The poem is, to the best of my perception and belief, a singularly
perfect piece of art ; containing, as all good art does, many very curious
shortcomings (to appearance), and places of rest, or of dead colour, or
of intended harshness, which, if they are seen or quoted without the parts
of the piece to which they relate, are of course absurd enough, precisely
as the discords in a fine piece of music would be if you played them
without their resolutions. You have quoted separately Mr. Patmore's dis-
cords ; you might by the same system of examination have made Mozart
or Mendelssohn appear to be no musicians, as you have probably convinced
your quick readers that Mr. Patmore is no poet.
I will not beg of you so much space as would be necessary to analyse
the poem, but I hope you will let me — once for all — protest against the
method of criticism which assumes that entire familiarity and simplicity
in certain portions of a great work destroy its dignity. Simple things
ought to be simply said, and truly poetical diction is nothing more nor less
than right diction ; the incident being itself poetical or not, according to
its relations and the feelings which it is intended to manifest — not accord-
ing to its own nature merely. To take a single instance out of Homer
bearing on that same simple household work which you are so shocked at
Mr. Patmore's taking notice of, Homer describes the business of a family
washing, when it comes into his poem, in the most accurate terms he can
find. " They took the clothes in their hands ; and poured on the clean
water ; and trod theia in trenches thoroughly, trying who could do it
best ; and when they had washed them and got off all the dirt, they
spread them out on the sea beach, where the sea had blanched the shingle
cleanest." 2
1 [Faithful for Ever, 1860. Re-issued in 1863 as Part II. Book i. of The Angel
in the House. The tone of the criticism is sufficiently explained in this letter.]
2 [See Homer, Odyssey, vi. 91 : — /
a \fpfflv %\OVTO Kal ^crtf>6pfov /j.t\av vdwp,
8'<?v I366pot<ri 0owj tpiSa wpo<ptpov<rai.
Airrdp tirfl ir\vvd.v re KdOrjpdv re ptiira. jrdvra,
'E£ehjs ir^raffav vapa Olv' aXds, fix1 M^'""7"*
Acftyyas vorl \ipffov a.iroir\tivf(rKe 0dXao-cra.
The verse translation of this passage given in the letter is from Pope's Odyssey.
The lines in Faithful for Ever, particularly alluded to as having been condemned
by the Critic, were those here italicized in the following passage : —
"For your sake I am glad to hear
You sail so soon. / send you, Dear,
A trifling present ; and will supply
Your Salisbury coxts. You have to buy
Almost an outfit for this cruise !
But many are good enough to use
490 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
These are the terms in which the great poet explains the matter. The
less poet — or, rather, man of modern wit and breeding, without superior
poetical power — thus puts the affair into dignified language :
"Then emulous the royal robes they lave,
And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave.
(The vestures cleansed o'erspread the shelly sand,
Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand.)"
Now, to my mind, Homer's language is by far the most poetical of the
two — is, in fact, the only poetical language possible in the matter. Whether
it was desirable to give any account of this, or anything else, depends
wholly on the relation of the passage to the rest of the poem, and you
could only show Mr. Patmore's glance into the servant's room to be ridicu-
lous by proving the mother's mind, which it illustrates, to be ridiculous.
Similarly, if you were to take one of Mr. George Richmond's perfectest
modern portraits,1 and give a little separate engraving of a bit of the neck-
tie or coat-lappet, you might easily demonstrate a very prosaic character
either in the riband-end or the button-hole. But the only real question
respecting them is their relation to the face, and the degree in which
they help to express the character of the wearer. What the real relations
of the parts are in the poem in question only a thoughtful and sensitive
reader will discover. The poem is not meant for a song, or calculated
for an hour's amusement ; it is, as I said, to the best of my belief, a
finished and tender work of very noble art. Whatever on this head may
be the final judgment of the public, I am bound, for my own part, to
express my obligation to Mr. Patmore, as one of my severest models and
tutors in use of English, and my respect for him as one of the truest and
tenderest thinkers who have ever illustrated the most important, because
commonest, states of noble human life.2
I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
ART-TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE
[This letter was originally addressed to an artist, Mr. Williams (of Southamp-
ton), and was then printed, some years later, in Nature and Art, December 1,
1866. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. p. 50.]
DENMARK HILL, November 1860.
DEAR MR. WILLIAMS, — I like your plan of teaching by letter exceed-
ingly: and not only so, but have myself adopted it largely, with the help
Again, among the things you send
To give away. My maid shall mend
And let you have them back. Adieu !
Tell me of all you see and do.
I know, thank God, whate'er it be,
'Twill need no veil 'twixt you and me."
Faithful for Ever, p. 17, II. "Mrs. Graham to Frederick," her sailor son.]
1 [For other references to George Richmond's portraits, see Vol. XIV. pp. 18,
217, 218.]
2 [Compare Sesame and Lilies, § 65 (Vol. XVIII. p. 120).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 491
of an intelligent under-master,1 whose operations, however, so far from inter-
fering with, you will much facilitate, if you can bring this literary way
of teaching into more accepted practice. I wish we had more drawing-
masters who were able to give instruction definite enough to be expressed
in writing : many can teach nothing but a few tricks of the brush, and
have nothing to write, because nothing to tell.
With every wish for your success, — a wish which I make quite as much
in your pupils' interest as in your own, —
Believe me, always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS
[From the Monthly Packet. November 1863, vol. 26, pp. 556-557 5 the passage
from the Political Economy of Art to which Ruskin refers iu his letter was appended,
pp. 558-560. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 226-228, with the
addition of the above title, and with the misprint of " 1 Samuel " for " 2 Samuel."
The preceding numbers of the Monthly Packet had contained various letters upon
dress, and the present one was then sent to the editor by the person to whom it
was originally addressed. A copy of the letter is in one of Ruskin's note-books,
with the following postscript to the friend (unnamed) to whom it was addressed : —
" I have written this with some care and scratching out — in case you
like to print it anywhere. I have enclosed it to my father, who will for-
ward it to you. I've asked him to put reference to the passage in Economy
of Art here at the bottom.
" Xenophon's description of a good housewife and of the way she is to
make good servants should be carefully translated and distributed, as people
do tracts.
" I like your little dialogue on dress and dinner very much — thank you
for it."
The careful translation of Xenophon's Economist was ultimately made' for Ruskin as
the first volume of his Bibliotheca Pastorum (Vol. XXXI.).]
GENEVA, October 2Qth} 1862.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am much obliged by your letter : pardon me if for
brevity's sake I answer with appearance of dogmatism. You will see the
subject treated as fully as I am able in the course of the papers on
political economy, of which the two first have already appeared in Fraser's
Magazine.2
The man and woman are meant by God to be perfectly noble and
beautiful in each other's eyes. The dress is right which makes them so.
The best dress is that which is beautiful in the eyes of noble and wise
persons.
i [Mr
3 [In
[Mr. William Ward : see Vol. XV. p. xvi.]
June and September 1863. See the first two chapters of Munera Pulveris.
The subject of dress, however, was not dealt with iu Munera Pulveris, the essays
having been stopped by the publisher of the Magazine (see Vol. XVII. p. 143).]
492 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Right dress is therefore that which is fit for the station in life, and
the work to be done in it ; and which is otherwise graceful — becoming —
lasting — healthful — and easy ; on occasion, splendid ; always as beautiful as
possible.
Right dress is therefore strong — simple — radiantly clean — carefully put
on — carefully kept.
Cheap dress, bought for cheapness' sake, and costly dress bought for
costliness' sake, are both abominations. Right dress is bought for its worth,
and at its worth ; and bought only when wanted.
Beautiful dress is chiefly beautiful in colour — in harmony of parts — and
in mode of putting on and wearing. Rightness of mind is in nothing more
shown than in the mode of wearing simple dress.
Ornamentation involving design, such as embroidery, etc., produced solely
by industry of hand, is highly desirable in the state dresses of all classes,
down to the lowest peasantry.
National costume, wisely adopted and consistently worn, is not only
desirable but necessary in right national organization. Obeying fashion is
a great folly, and a greater crime ; but gradual changes in dress properly
accompany a healthful national development.
The Scriptural authority for dress is centralized by Proverbs xxxi. 21,
22 ; and by 2 Samuel i. 24 ; the latter especially indicating the duty of
the king or governor of the state, as the former the duty of the house-
wife. It is necessary for the complete understanding of those passages,
that the reader should know that " scarlet " means intense central radi-
ance of pure colour; it is the type of purest colour — between pale and
dark — between sad and gay.1 It was therefore used with hyssop as a type of
purification.2 There are many stronger passages, such as Psalm xlv. 13, 14 ;
but as some people read them under the impression of their being figura-
tive, I need not refer to them. The passages in the Prophecies and Epistles
against dress apply only to its abuses. Dress worn for the sake of vanity,
or coveted in jealousy, is as evil as anything else similarly so abused. A
woman should earnestly desire to be beautiful, as she should desire to be
intelligent ; her dress should be as studied as her words ; but if the one is
worn or the other spoken in vanity or insolence, both are equally criminal.
I have not time, and there is no need, to refer you to the scattered
notices of dress in my books : the most important is rather near the be-
ginning of my Political Economy of Art ; 3 but I have not the book by me :
if you make any use of this letter (you may make any you please,) I
should like you to add that passage to it, as it refers to the more imme-
diate need of economy in dress, when the modes of its manufacture are
irregular, and cause distress to the operative.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Compare Vol. VI. pp. 69-70 (where 2 Samuel i. 24 is quoted), and Vol. XXVI.
p. 184.]
2 [See Leviticus xiv. 4, 6, 49-52: compare Vol. VII. pp. 414-415.]
3 [See §§ 50-54 (Vol. XVII. pp. 49-53). The other references may be found in
the General Index, or in one of the " Ruskin Treasuries," entitled Women and
Dress (George Allen, 1906). See especially The Story of Arachne, Vol. XX. pp. 377,
378. Compare also the letter below, on "Sad-coloured Costumes," p. 502.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 493
OAK SILKWORMS
[From the Times. October 24, 1862. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace. vol. ii.
p. 232.]
To the Editor of the " Times "
GENEVA, Oct. 20th [1862].
SIR, — In your excellent article of October 17, on possible substitutes
for cotton, you say "it is very doubtful whether we could introduce the
silkworm with profit." The silkworm of the mulberry tree, indeed, requires
a warmer climate than ours, but has attention yet been directed to the
silkworm of the oak ? A day or two ago a physician of European reputa-
tion, Dr. L. A. Gosse,1 was speaking to me of the experiments recently
made in France in its acclimatization. He stated to me that the only
real difficulty was temporary — namely, in the importation of the eggs,
which are prematurely hatched as they are brought through warm lati-
tudes. A few only have reached Europe, and their multiplication is slow,
but once let them be obtained in quantity and the stripping of an oak
coppice is both robe and revenue. The silk is stronger than that of the
mulberry tree, and the stuff worn of it more healthy than cotton stuffs for
the wearer, it also wears twice as long. This is Dr. Gosse's report — likely
to be a trustworthy one — at all events, it seems to me worth sending you.
I remain your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
TURNER AND CLAUDE
[This letter was printed in Igdrasil, June 1890, vol. i. p. 209, and thence in
Ruskiniana, Part i., 1890, p. 27 (No. 15). The original publication has not
been traced.]
GENEVA, February 16th, 1863.
MY DEAR SIR, — I regret that your letter did not reach me till yester-
day, owing to my absence from England.
It is seldom that falsehoods are so direct, pure, and foundationless as
those which you have given me this opportunity of contradicting. Every
year of my life shows me some higher and more secret power in Turner,
and deepens my contempt for Claude.
I believe at this moment the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting (centred
in England, but with branches in other countries) to be the only vital and
true school of painting in Europe ; and its English leader, Dante G. Rossetti,
to be, without any compare, the greatest of English painters now living.
Make any use of this letter, and of these statements, that you please ;
but permit me to express my regret that they should be necessary. Either
my works are entirely worthless, or they are, at least in some measure,
what they profess to be throughout, demonstrations or illustrations of
truths: no expressions of opinion.2 If I have not shown that Turner is
1 [See Vol. XVII. p. Ixi.]
» [Compare Vol. XXVII. pp. 99, 195, 314 ; and see Vol. XX. p. 49 (§ 36).]
494 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
greater than Claude (quite infinitely greater), my life has been wasted.
And if I have, inquiries as to ray opinions, present or past, are surely
irrelevant. Whether I have or not, the facts are ascertainable (else there
is no art of painting); and the question is not what any one thinks, but
what is the truth of the matter.
Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very truly,
J. RUSKIN.
"THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE"
[This and the following1 letter were sent to the editor of Igdrasil (November 1890,
vol. ii. p. 64) by Mr. Henry Beaumont, of Upcote, Shepherd's Hill, Highgate.
Miss Tattersall, then at school, had written asking Ruskin to explain some passages
in his writing — probably Ethics of the Dust, § 70 ; in illustration of which, Ruskin
may have referred to Crown of Wild Olive, §§ 129 seq. (see Vol. XVIII. pp. 286,
490-492). In reply he sent her The Crown of Wild Olive and the first of these
letters. The letters were reprinted (Nos. 97 and 98) in Ruskiniana, Part i.,
1890, p. 92.]
(l) 20th November, 1866.
MY DEAR Miss TATTERSALL, — I hope you will get the " Crown of Olive "
soon after this note. When you have looked at the passages I told you
of, write again to say if you are still puzzled.
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
DENMARK HILL, S., 15th December, 1866.
My DEAR Miss TATTERSALL, — I fear I must have expressed myself very
imperfectly in those books to lead you thus in difficulties. Of course
our duties are continually painful to us, and can only be done through
perpetual pain ; but in exact proportion as the character becomes perfect
the duty becomes first painless, then delightful ; and an angel's duties are
certainly not painful to him, nor the duties of the servants of God, who
" seek His face continually." * The lesson which you practically have to
draw is not that you are to give up your duties because they are painful,
but to practise them till they are pleasant. Of course, suffering inflicted
on us by others must be borne patiently ; but it is no more a part of our
duty to seek for it than to seek martyrdom. The great mistake I wished
to guard you and my other girl-readers against was that of thinking that
mere self-denial — as such — was necessarily a virtue. It is a virtue only
when you desire what you should not. It is a virtue in a malicious person
to deny themselves, and not speak maliciously. But it is not a virtue in
a loving person not to speak lovingly. I hope this will become clearer to
you in time. But do not puzzle about it. If you always do what you feel
to be right, you will soon see clearly what is right.
Yours truly,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [1 Chronicles xvi. 11 (hitherto misprinted "see").]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 495
TO AN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR
[From the Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1883, addressed to Mr. H. T. Taverner.]
DENMARK HILL, 20th June, '67.
MY DEAR SIR, — I often think a series of autographs might be much
more interesting if one tried to get two or three (possibly enough, of living
people) written with divers pens — and in divers tempers. If you ever get
hold of any of my directions to refractory engravers, please, at all events,
don't keep that.
Always very truly yours,
J. RusKiN.1
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 22, 1868. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. ii. p. 271. The Daily Telegraph of January 21, 1868, contained a
leading article upon the following facts. It appeared that a girl, named Matilda
Griggs, had been nearly murdered by her seducer, who, after stabbing her in
no less than thirteen different places, had then left her for dead. She had,
however, still strength enough to crawl into a field close by, and there swooned.
The assistance that she met with in this plight was of a rare kind. Two calves
came up to her, and disposing themselves on either side of her bleeding body,
thus kept her warm and partly sheltered from cold and rain. Temporarily pre-
served, the girl eventually recovered, and entered into recognizances, under a sum
of forty pounds, to prosecute her murderous lover. But "she loved much," and,
failing to prosecute, forfeited her recognizances, and was imprisoned by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer for her debt. " Pity this poor debtor," wrote the
Daily Telegraph, and in the next day's issue appeared the following letter, probably
not intended for the publication accorded to it. Ruskin's letter was the subject
of a cartoon in Judy, January 29, 1868, entitled " Nature and Art, respectfully
dedicated to Matilda Griggs," representing Ruskin fondling two calves.]
1 [Ruskin was often " drawn " by autograph-hunters ; but ultimately eluded
them. " An Autograph Fiend " in " his Confessions " (Spare Moments, March 12,
1892) " took the trouble to read one of Ruskin's books and then wrote to him,
asking him to explain a difficulty." The reply was : —
" DEAR SIR, — What you cannot understand in my book is not meant for
you. Do not trouble your head about it. — Faithfully yours,
" J. RUSKIN."
In an article entitled " Ways of the Autograph Hunter," in Tit-Bits, March 27, 1886,
it is said : " I was a long time getting a letter from Mr. Ruskin, but it came at
last. I asked his opinion as to what were the best theological works for a young
member of the Church of England to improve her mind with. His reply was
this : ' I have no time to write to you at any length, and I take no interest in any
young ladies who study theology.' "
In 1894 the following letter was received by an author who sent his book : —
"Mr. Ruskin has received Mr. Thatcher's letter and enclosure. Mr.
Ruskin never thanks authors for sending him their books ; he never sends
his own to strangers" (Daily News, October 23, 1894).
Finally, see a Circular about requests for autographs, below, p. 652.]
498 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 15, 1870. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. ii. pp. 184-186. The correspondence originated as follows. In the
Fortnightly Review of October 1869 appeared an article against fox-hunting by
E. A. Freeman, entitled " The Morality of Field Sports," to which Anthony Trollope
replied by one entitled "The Morality of Hunting," in the Fortnightly of the
following December. Freeman then rejoined by two letters of considerable length,
addressed to the editor of the Daily Telegraph (December 18 and 29), in whose
columns some discussion of the matter had already been carried on, whilst one of its
"leaders" had strongly supported Freeman's views. Other correspondence on the
subject was still appearing in the Daily Telegraph from day to day at the time
Kuskin wrote the present letter. The first draft of this letter is in one of the
ledgers containing Ruskin's Oxford lectures, and is here reproduced.]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
DENMARK HILL, Jan. 14 [1870],
SIR, — As, thirty years ago,1 I publicly expressed a strong opinion on the
subject of field sports, and as with more accurate knowledge I hold the
same opinion still, and more strongly, — will you permit me to place the
controversy between your correspondents, in which I have no time to take
part, on somewhat clearer grounds.
Reprobation of fox-hunting on the ground of cruelty to the fox is entirely
futile. More pain is caused to the draught-horses of London in an hour
by avariciously overloading them, than to all the foxes in England by the
hunts of the year : and the rending of body and heart in human death,
caused by neglect, in our country cottages, in any one winter, could not be
equalled by the death-pangs of any quantity of foxes.
The real evils of fox-hunting are that it wastes the time, misapplies the
energy, exhausts the wealth, narrows the capacity, debases the taste, and
abates the honour of the upper classes of this country; and instead of
keeping, as your correspondent "Forester" supposes, "thousands from the
workhouse," it sends thousands of the poor, both there, and into the
grave.
The athletic training given by fox-hunting4 is excellent ; and such
training is vitally necessary to the upper classes. But it ought always to
be in real service to their country ; in personal agricultural labour at the
head of their tenantry ; and in extending English life and dominion in
waste regions, against the adverse powers of nature. Let them become
Captains of Emigration ; 2 — hunting down the foxes that spoil the Vineyard 3
of the World ; and keep their eyes on the leading hound, in Packs of Men.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [In various parts of Modern Painters. See Vol. VII. pp. 340-341 (where, in a
note, other references are now collected).]
2 [On emigration, compare Crown of Wild Olive, § 159 (Vol. XVIII. p. 513),
and Lectures on Art, § 29 (Vol. XX. p. 42).]
8 [See Canticles ii. 13.]
Cfl
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ARROWS OF THE CHACE
FEMALE FRANCHISE
[Date and place of original publication unknown. The letter was included in
Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 225.]
VENICE, 2Qth May, 1870.
SIR, — I am obliged by your note. I have no time for private corre-
spondence at present, but you are quite right in your supposition as to
my views respecting female franchise. So far from wishing to give votes
to women, I would fain take them away from most men.1
Very sincerely yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
[This and the following letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph, October 7 and
8, 1870. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 34-37, 38-42. For Ruskin's
numerous references to the Franco-German War, see the General Index.]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
(1)
DENMARK HILL, S.E., Oct. 6 [1870].
SIR, — My friends ask me why I speak no word about this war, suppos-
ing— like vain friends as they are — that I might have some poor influence
of intercession for filigree-work, French clocks, and other tender articles of
vertu, felt at this moment to be in grave danger.
But, in the first place, I know that the just Fates will reward no inter-
cession, either for human life or chinaware, until their will has been accom-
plished upon all of us. In the second, I know also that the German
armies will spare what they can, and think they ought, without taking
advice of me. In the third, I have said long ago 2 — no one listening — the
best I had to say on these matters.
But, after your notice to-day of the escape of M. Edouard Frere,3 whose
1 [So also in writing an excuse for absence from a lecture upon " Woman's
Work and Woman's Sphere," given on behalf of the French female refugees by
Miss Emily Faithfull in February 1871, Ruskin said : —
" I most heartily sympathize with you in your purpose of denning
woman's work and sphere. It is as refreshing as the dew's, and as
denned as the moon's, but it is not the rain's nor the sun's."
(Daily Telegraph, February 21, 1871.)]
[That is, in the Crown of Wild Olive (1866), as cited below.]
3 [M. Edouard Frere and Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur were allowed to leave Paris
and pass the lines of the Prussian army after the blockade of the French capital
had been begun. For Ruskin's early recognition of M. Frere's power, see Academy
Notes, 1856 (Vol. XIV. p. 83), where some "cottage studies" are spoken of as
"quite unequalled in sincerity and truth of conception, though somewhat dimly
painted" ; 1857 (ibid., pp. 142-143), where his pictures are said to " unite the depth
of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the holiness of Augelico" ; and 1858
(ibid., p. 174), where this last expression of praise is emphasised and at some length
explained. Compare Art of England, § 108 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 339).]
xxxiv. 2 I
500 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
gentle power I was, I believe, the first to recognize publicly in England,
it is possible that some of your readers may care to look back at what I
wrote of modern war four years ago, and to know the aspect it takes to
me, now that it has come to pass.
If you will reprint these few following sentences for me from the Crown
of Wild Olive, I shall be able to-morrow to put what I would add to
them briefly enough to claim little space in your columns:
_i
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
Oct. 7 [1870].
SIR, — As I am always blamed if I approach my subject on any but its
picturesque side, it is well for me that in to-day's Times I find it announced
that at Strasburg the Picture Gallery — with the pictures in it ? — the Library
— with the books in it ? 2 — and the Theatre, with certainly two hundred
persons in it, have been burnt to the ground under an auxiliary cannonade,
the flames at night being "a tempting target." It is true that in your
columns I find the consolatory news that the Parisians are repairing those
losses by casting a bronze Strasburg ; 3 but if, as a poor art professor, I
may venture an opinion, I would fain suggest to them that if their own
picture gallery, with the pictures and bits of marble in it — Venus of Melos
and the like — and their own Library — Royal, Imperiale, Nationale, or what-
ever they now call it — should presently become tempting targets also by
the light of their own flames, the casting of a bronze Paris, in even the
most imposing of attitudes, will scarcely redeem their loss, were it but to
the admiring eyes of Paris herself.
There is yet another letter in the Times,* of more importance than the
one from Strasburg. It is headed, "The Difficulties of Neutrality," dated
Bonn, and anticipates part of what I was going to say ; for the rest, the
lessons of the war, as I read them, are briefly these.
1 [The extracts were (in order) from §§ 102-103 ("If you have to take away
masses of men from all industrial employment . . . multiplication of murder"),
§ 74 ("(But) the wonder has always been great to me . . . nearly as merciless"),
and §§ 113, 114 (complete) : Vol. XVIII. pp. 471-472, 449-450, 478-479.]
2 [For another reference to this incident of the war, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 1
(January 1871), Vol. XXVII. p. 17.]
3 [The Daily Telegraph of October 7 contained amongst its Paris news that of the
decision of the Government of National Defence to cast a statue of the city of
Strasburg in bronze, in memory of its " heroic resistance to the enemy during a
murderous siege of fifty days." For another reference to the statue, see Vol. XX.
p. 227.1
4 [Ihis letter was signed "W. C. P.," who, after stating himself to be an
English resident in Germany, proceeded to lament the changed position of England
in the opinion of foreign nations, and especially in that of the Germans, who no
longer spoke of her, as formerly, " with affectionate admiration or even envious
respect." "And I must confess," concluded the letter, "that I find it difficult
to answer them ; for it seems to me that we have already good reason to
say, in reference to the present struggle, ' All is lost save money.' " (Times,
October 7, 1870.)]
PORTION OF THE FIRST DRAFT OF A LETTER ON "THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 501
As to its cause, neither the French nation nor their Emperor brought
on war by any present will of their own.1 Neither of them were capable
of a will at all — far less of executing it. The nation has since declared, by
submission, with acclaim, to a change of Government which for the time
renders all political treaty with it practically impossible, that during the
last twenty years it has been deceived or subdued into obedience to a
man for whom it had no respect, and who had no hereditary claim to the
throne.2 What "will" or responsibility of action can be expected from a
nation which confesses this of itself? On the other hand, the Emperor,
be his motives never so selfish, could only have hoped to save his dynasty
by compliance with the passions of a populace which he knew would
overthrow it in the first hour of their mortification. It is in these vain
passions and the falsehoods on which they have fed that we must look for
the deep roots of all this misery. Since the days of the First Empire,
no cottage in France has been without its Napoleonic picture and legend,
fostering one and the same faith in the heart of every peasant boy, that
there is no glory but in battle ; and since the founding of the Second
Empire no street of any city has risen into its foolish magnificence without
collateral proclamation that there was no pleasure but in vice.8
Then, secondly, for the actual question of the war: it is a simple and
testing struggle between pure Republicanism on the one side, expressed
in the most exquisite, finished, and exemplary anarchy, yet achieved under
— earth — and one of the truest Monarchies and schools of honour and
obedience yet organized under heaven. And the secret of its strength, we
have to note, is essentially pacific ; for all the wars of the Great Friedrich
would have passed away resultless — as great wars usually do — had it not
been for this pregnant fact at the end of them : " All his artillery horses
are parted into plough-teams, and given to those who otherwise can get
none " (Carlyle, vol. vi., first edition, p. 350) — that 21st book on the repair
of Prussia being of extant literature the most important piece for us to
read and digest in these days of " raising the poor without gifts " — never
asking who first let them fall — and of turning workmen out of dockyards,
without any consciousness that, of all the stores in the yard, the men
were exactly the most precious. You expressed, Sir, in your article on the
loss of the Captain* a feeling common, I suppose, for once, to all of us,
that the principal loss was not the iron of the ship, but the five hundred
men in her. Perhaps, had she been of gold instead of iron plate, public
mourning might have inclined itself to the side of the metal. But how if
the whole British public should be itself at this instant afloat in a captain-
less Captain, built of somewhat dirty yet substantial gold, and in extremest
peril of turning bottom upwards ? Which will be the end, indeed, unless
the said public quickly perceive that their hope must be, not in docks
1 [Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 6, § 7 (Vol. XXVII. p. 105).]
1 [For a note on Ruskin's references to Napoleon III., see Vol. XXVII. p. 171.]
8 [The first draft of this letter is in one of the ledgers containing the MS. of
Ruskin's Oxford lectures. The facsimile opposite shows that the letter underwent
much revision before being sent for publication.]
4 [The turret-ship Captain foundered off Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870.
For the articles alluded to, see the Daily Telegraph of September 12 and follow-
ing days. For other references to the disaster, see Vol. XXXIII. pp. 217, 508.]
502 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
nor ships, but in men. They, and they only, are our guarantee for territory.
Prussia herself seems as simple as the rest of us in her talk of "guaran-
tees." Alsace and Lorraine, if dishonestly come by, may be honestly retaken ;
but if for "guarantee," why these only? Why not Burgundy and Anjou —
Auvergne and the Limousin? Let France lose what she may, if she can
but find a Charles and Roland among her children, she will recover her
empire, though she had been beaten back to the Breche ; l and if she find
them not, Germany has all the guarantee she needs in her own name and
in her own right hand.
Let her look to it, now, that her fame be not sullied. She is pressing
her victory too far — dangerously far, as uselessly. The Nemesis of battle
may indeed be near her; greater glory she cannot win by the taking of
Paris, nor the overrunning of provinces — she only prolongs suffering, re-
doubles death, extends loss, incalculable and irremediable. But let her now
give unconditional armistice, and offer terms that France can accept with
honour, and she will bear such rank among the nations as never yet shone
on Christian history.
For us, we ought to help France now, if we ever did anything, but of
course there remains for us only neutrality — selling of coke, and silence
(if we have grace enough left to keep it). I have only broken mine to
say that I am ashamed to speak as being one of a nation regardless of its
honour alike in trade and policy; poor, yet not careful to keep even the
treasure of probity — and rich, without being able to afford itself the luxury
of courage.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
SAD-COLOURED COSTUMES
[From Macmittaris Magazine, November 1870, p. 80. Reprinted in Arrows of
the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 229-231. Mr. Stopford Brooke's article was a review of
lluskin's Lectures on Art delivered at Oxford, and then recently published. In a
note to the present letter the editor of the Magazine stated Mr. Brooke's regret
" at having been led by a slip of memory into making an inaccurate statement."]
To the Editor of " Macmillan's Magazine"
DENMARK HILL, S.E., Uth Oct., 1870.
SIR, — At p. 423 of your current number, Mr. Stopford A. Brooke states
that it is a proposal of mine for regenerating the country, that the poor
should be "dressed all in one sad-coloured costume."
It is, indeed, too probable that one sad-coloured costume may soon be
" your only wear," instead of the present motley 2 — for both poor and rich.
But the attainment of this monotony was never a proposition of mine ; and
1 [For the "Breche de Roland," see Vol. VI. p. 213, and Vol. IX. p. 103 n. ;
and for other references to Roland, Vol. XXII. p. 287.]
2 [As You Like It, Act ii. sc. 7.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 503
as I am well aware Mr. Brooke would not have been guilty of misrepre-
sentation, if he had had time to read the books he was speaking of, I am
sure he will concur in my request that you would print in full the passages
to which he imagined himself to be referring.1
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
"NOTRE DAME DE PARIS"
[This letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph, January 19, 1871. Reprinted in
Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. pp. 227-228.]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
[January, 1871.]
SIR, — It may perhaps be interesting to some of your readers, in the
present posture of affairs round Paris, to know, as far as I am able to tell
them, the rank which the Church of Notre Dame holds among architectural
and historical monuments.
Nearly every great church in France has some merit special to itself;
in other countries, one style is common to many districts; in France,
nearly every province has its unique and precious monument.
But of thirteenth-century Gothic — the most perfect architectural style
north of the Alps — there is both in historical interest, and in accomplished
perfectness of art, one unique monument — the Sainte Chapelle of Paris.2
As examples of Gothic, ranging from the twelfth to the fourteenth
century, the cathedrals of Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Rheims, and Bourges,
form a kind of cinque-foil round Notre Dame of Paris, of which it is im-
possible to say which is the more precious petal; but any of those leaves
would be worth a complete rose of any other country's work except Italy's.
Nothing else in art, on the surface of the round earth, could represent
any one of them, if destroyed, or be named as of any equivalent value.
Central among these, as in position, so in its school of sculpture ; un-
equalled in that specialty but by the porch of the north transept of Rouen,
and, in a somewhat later school, by the western porches of Bourges;3 abso-
lutely unreplaceable as a pure and lovely source of art instruction by any
future energy or ingenuity, stands — perhaps, this morning, I ought rather
to write, stood 4 — Notre Dame of Paris.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [The passagei were (1) from the Crown of Wild Olive, § 27 (" You ladies like
to lead the fashion ... all the better"), Vol. XVIII. pp. 407-408; (2) from A
Joy for Ever, §§ 8-10 (" In the simplest and clearest definition . . . for beauty,"
and "And in private ... by her smile"), Vol. XVI. pp. 19-21.]
2 [Compare Modern Painters, vol. iv. (Vol. VI. p. 436).]
3 [For notices of the north transept of Rouen, see, e.g., Vol. VIII. pp. 91 n., 278;
and of the western porches of Bourges, Vol. XX. p. 160 n., and Vol. XXI. p. 30.]
4 [This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the bombardment and a
few days before the capitulation of Paris in 1871.]
504 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
COMING CATASTROPHE
[From a letter to Alfred T. Richards, printed by him on page 10 of a pamphlet
entitled Address delivered before the Men's Class of the Asylum Hill Congregational
Church, Hartford, Connecticut, January 10, 1904- The title of the address is "The
Afterglow of a Great Man's Life."]
1871.
You ask me what form of catastrophe threatens England. None of
us need speculate on the matter; every historical error has its own
specialities of ruin. In the meantime, all that we can do is, each in his
place, to form a clear view of what is right and to do that resolutely and
simply, in spite alike of the fashions and doctrines of the day.
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR"
[From the Asiatic, May 23, 1871. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii.
pp. 248, 249. The article was entitled " Aryan Mythology : Second Notice," the
first notice having been a review of Mr. Gladstone's Juventus Mundi, and of
some other mythological works. (See the Asiatic, April 26 and May 16, 1871.)
The nature of the praise and criticism of the article may be gathered from
this letter. For another letter on The Queen of the Air, see below, p. 551.]
To the Editor of the " Asiatic "
May 18, 1871.
SIR, — I am obliged and flattered by the tone of your article on my
"Queen of the Air" in your last number, but not at all by the substance
of it ; and it so much misinterprets my attempt in that book that I will
ask your leave to correct it in main points. The " Queen of the Air "
was written to show, not what could be fancied, but what was felt and
meant, in the myth of Athena. Every British sailor knows that Neptune
is the god of the sea. He does not know that Athena is the goddess of
the air ; I doubt if many of our school-boys know it — I doubt even if
many of our school-masters know it ; and I believe the evidence of it
given in the " Queen of the Air " to be the first clear and connected
approximate proof of it which has yet been rendered by scientific myth-
ology, properly so called.
You say, "I have not attempted to explain all mythology." I wonder
what you would have said of me if I had ? I only know a little piece of
it here and there, just as I know a crag of alp or a bend of river ; and
even what I know could not be put into a small octavo volume. Never-
theless, I should have had another such out by this time on the Apolline
Myths,1 and, perhaps, one on the Earth-Gods, but for my Oxford work ;
and shall at all events have a little more to say on the matter than I
1 [For other references to this intended study, see Vol. XIX. pp. Ixi., Ixvi. In
the autumn of 1871 Ruskin prepared for press his lectures entitled Aratra Pentelid,
which touched on mythology ; see also the chapters now added to that book
(Vol. XX.).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 505
have yet said — and much need there is — when all that has yet been done
by "scientific" mythology ends in the assertion made by your reviewer,
that " mythology is useful mainly as a storehouse for poets, and for literary
men in want of some simile or metaphor to produce a striking effect."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN,
THE BLIND
[From Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, by Frances Martin, 1887,
p. 256. For another letter on a similar charity, see below, p. 540.]
DENMARK HILL, 2nd September, 1871.
MADAM, — I am obliged by your letter, and I deeply sympathise with
the objects of the institution over which you preside. But one of my
main principles of work is that every one must do their best and spend
their all in their own work, and mine is with a much lower race of
sufferers than you plead for — with those who " have eyes and see not." *
I am, Madam, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
"FORS CLAVIGERA"
[From Poet-Lore (Philadelphia), vol. iii., 1891, p. 361.]
MELROSE, 2<lth September, '71.
My DEAR SIR, — I am sincerely obliged by your letter ; but for reasons
partly stated in Fors Clavigera,2 I do not wish to print a cheap edition of
my books. Nevertheless, if you can afford your sevenpence a month, all
that / have to tell you, that I think worth your listening to, will come
into Fors, or I will tell you where and how to find it elsewhere.
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME
[From the Daily Telegraph, December 11, 1871. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. ii. p. 187. For other discussions on the subject of this letter, see Time
and Tide, Vol. XVII. pp. 370 (and the other passages there noted), 469.]
\To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
DENMARK HILL, Dec. 9 [1871].
SIR, — I am greatly surprised by the slightness of your article to-day
on the statistics of drunkenness and the relative statistics of crime.3
The tables you have given, if given only in that form by Professor
1 [Mark viii. 18.]
1 [See Letter 6, Vol. XXVII. pp. 99-101 ; " my books," hitherto misprinted
" any books."]
3 [A short leader to which special reference is unnecessary.]
506 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Leone Levi,1 are anything but "instructive." Liquor is not, for such pur-
pose, to be measured only by the gallon, but by the gallon with accom-
panying statement of strength.
Crime is not for such purpose to be measured by the number of
criminals, but by the number, with accompanying statement of the crime
committed. Drunkenness very slightly encourages theft, very largely en-
courages murder, and universally encourages idleness, which is not a crime
apparent in a tabular form. But, whatever results might, even by such
more accurate statement, be attainable, are not material to the question
at issue. Drunkenness is not the cause of crime in any case, it is itself
crime in every case. A gentleman will not knock out his wife's brains
when he is drunk ; but it is nevertheless his duty to remain sober.
Much more is it his duty to teach his peasantry to remain sober,
and to furnish them with sojourn more pleasant than the pothouse, and
means of amusement less circumscribed than the pot. And the encourage-
ment of drunkenness, for the sake of the profit on sale of drink, is
certainly one of the most criminal methods of assassination for money
hitherto adopted by the bravos of an age or country.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
CASTLES AND KENNELS
[From the Daily Telegraph, December 22, 1871. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace,
vol. i. pp. 223-224.]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
DENMARK HILL, Dec. 20 [1871].
SIR, — I was astonished the other day by your article on taverns, but
never yet in my life was so much astonished by anything in print as by
your to-day's article on castles.2
I am a castle-lover of the truest sort.3 I do not suppose any man alive
has felt anything like the sorrow or anger with which I have watched
the modern destruction by railroad and manufacture, helped by the wicked
improvidence of our great families, of half the national memorials of Eng-
land, either actually or in effect and power of association — as Conway,
for instance, now vibrating to ruin over a railroad station. For Warwick
Castle, I named it in my letter of last October, in Fors Clavigera,* as a
1 [Jurist and statistician, 1821-1888 ; Professor of Commerce at King's College,
London, 1852 ; vice-president of the Statistical Society, 1885.]
2 [The article on taverns occurred in the Daily Telegraph of the 8th December,
and commented on a recent meeting of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Society.
There was also a short article upon drunkenness as a cause of crime in the Daily
Telegraph of December 9 — referred to by Ruskin in the preceding letter. The
article on castles concluded with an appeal for public subscriptions towards the
restoration of Warwick Castle, then recently destroyed by fire.]
3 [See above, p. 486; and Praterita, i. §§ 6, 35; ii. § 22.]
* [Letter 10 (Vol. XXVII. p. 170).]
sars
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 507
type of the architectural treasures of this England of ours known to me
and beloved from childhood to this hour.
But, Sir, I am at this hour endeavouring to find work and food for a
boy of seventeen, one of eight people — two married couples, a woman and
her daughter, and this boy and his sister, — who all sleep together in one
room, some 18 ft square, in the heart of London; and you call upon me
for a subscription to help to rebuild Warwick Castle.
Sir, I am an old and thoroughbred Tory,1 and as such I say, " If a
noble family cannot rebuild their own castle, in God's name let them live
in the nearest ditch till they can."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
VERONA v. WARWICK
[Printed in the Daily Telegraph, December 25, 1871. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. i. pp. 225-226.]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
DENMARK HILL, S.E., 24th (for 25^) December [1871].
SIR, — Of lodging for poor and rich you will perhaps permit a further
word or two from me, even in your close columns for Christmas morning.
You think me inconsistent because I wanted to buy Verona, and do not
want to restore Warwick.2
I wanted, and still want, to buy Verona. I would give half my fortune
to buy it for England, if any other people would help me. But I would
buy it, that what is left of it might not be burned, and what is lost of it
not restored. It would indeed be very pleasant — not to me only, but to
many other sorrowful persons — if things could be restored when we chose.
I would subscribe willingly to restore, for instance, the manger wherein
the King of Judah lay cradled this day some years since, and not unwill-
ingly to restore the poorer cradle of our English King-maker, were it
possible. But for the making of a new manger, to be exhibited for the
edification of the religious British public, I will not subscribe. No ; nor
for the building of mock castles, or mock cathedrals, or mocks of anything.
And the sum of what I have to say in this present matter may be put in
few words.
As an antiquary — which, thank Heaven, I am — I say, " Part of Warwick
Castle is burnt — 'tis pity. Take better care of the rest."
As an old Tory — which, thank Heaven, I am — I say, "Lord Warwick's
house is burned. Let Lord Warwick build a better if he can, — a worse
if he must, — but in any case, let him neither beg nor borrow."
1 [Compare the first words of Praeterita.']
2 [In a second article upon the same subject the Daily Telegraph had expressed
surprise at Ruskin's former letter. "Who does not remember," it wrote, "his
proposal to buy Verona, so as to secure from decay the glorious monuments in
it?" The proposal was in the Political Economy of Art : see Vol. XVI. pp. 69-71.]
508 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
As a modern renovator and Liberal — which, thank Heaven, I am not
— I would say, "By all means let the public subscribe to build a spick-
and-span new Warwick Castle, and let the pictures be touched up, and
exhibited by gaslight ; let the family live in the back rooms, and let there
be a table d'hote in the great hall at two and six every day, 2s. 6d. a head,
and let us have Guy's bowl for a dinner bell."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW
[From the Liverpool Weekly Albion, November 9, 1872. Reprinted in Arrows of
the Chace, vol. ii. p. 273. The review was the first of three articles upon Ruskin
entitled "The Disciple of Art and the Votary of Science," published in the Liverpool
Weekly Albion of November 9, 16, and 23, 1872. The first of them had also
appeared previously in the Liverpool Daily Albion (where Ruskin had seen it), and
was reprinted with the present letter in the weekly issue of November 9. The aim
of the articles was partly to show how the question " What is Art?" involved a
second and deeper inquiry, " What is Man ? " The words bracketed here were
omitted in the Albion, but occur in the original letter, for access to which the
editor of Arrows of the Chace had to thank the writer of the articles.]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
Wednesday, 30th Oct. [1872].
[My DEAR] SIR, — I was on the point of writing to the Editor of the
Albion to ask the name of the author of that article. Of course, one likes
praise, [and I'm so glad of it that I can take a great many kinds] but I
never got any [that] I liked so much before, because, as far as I [can]
remember, nobody ever noticed or allowed for the range of work I've had
to do, and which really has been dreadfully costly and painful to me,
compelling me to leave things just at the point when one's work on them
has become secure and delightsome, to attack them on another rough
side. It is a most painful manner of life, and I never got any credit for
it before. But the more I see, the more I feel the necessity of seeing all
round, however hastily. > — —
I am entirely grateful for the review and the understanding of me,
and I needed some help just now — for I'm at once single-handed and dead
— or worse — hearted, and as nearly beaten as I've been in my life.
Always therefore I shall be, for the encouragement at a heavy time,
Very gratefully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
"ACT, ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT"
[From the New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class, Aberdeen,
1873. Reprinted, under the above title (from Longfellow's Psalm of Life), in
Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 208-209. This and two later letters (see pp. 512,
534) were originally printed in different annual numbers of the above-named publi-
cation, to whose editor (Mr. John Leith, 75, Crown Street, Aberdeen) they were
addressed. Amongst the "messages" contained in them are some from Mr.
Gladstone and others.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 509
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
Christmas Eve, '72.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am always much interested in any effort such as you
are making on the part of the laity.
If you care to give your class a word directly from me, say to them
that they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble themselves
about what they ought not to do, but about what they ought to do. The
condemnation given from the judgment throne — most solemnly described
— is all for the undones and not for the dones.1 People are perpetually
afraid of doing wrong ; but unless they are doing its reverse energetically,
they do it all day long, and the degree does not matter. The Command-
ments are necessarily negative, because a new set of positive ones would
be needed for every person : while the negatives are constant.
But Christ sums them all into two rigorous positions, and the first
position for young people is active and attentive kindness to animals, sup-
posing themselves set by God to feed His real sheep and ravens before
the time comes for doing either figuratively. There is scarcely any con-
ception left of the character which animals and birds might have if kindly
treated in a wild state.2
Make your young hearers resolve to be honest in their work in this
life. — Heaven will take care of them for the other.
Truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
WOMAN'S WORK
[From L'Esperance, Journel Mensuel, organs de fAssociation des Femmes,
Geneve, lo & Mai, 1873. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 223-224.
The editors have been unable to get access to the paper from which this letter is
taken, and must therefore leave without explanation the fortunately unimportant
references in its first paragraph. For another quotation from L'Esperance , see Fors
Clavigera, Letter 53 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 338). The letter was probably addressed to
Madame Roch, of Geneva, with whom Ruskin used to correspond.]
Lettre a la Presidente
[1873.]
MA CHERE MADAME, — Je vous remercie de votre lettre si interessante,
car je sympathise de tout mon coeur avec la plupart des sentiments et des
souhaits que vous y exprimez. Mais arriver a rendre des femmes plus
nobles et plus sages est une chose ; les clever de facon a ce qu'elles
entretiennent leurs maris est une autre !
Je ne puis trouver des termes assez forts pour exprimer la haine et le
mepris que je ressens pour I'id^e moderne qu'une femme doit cesser d'etre
mere, fille, ou femme pour qu'elle puisse devenir commis ou ingenieur.3
Vous etes toutes entierement sottes dans cette matiere. Le devoir d'un
1 [See the tenth of Ruskin's letters on the Lord's Prayer ; above, p. 209.]
* [Compare the Fourth Letter on the Lord's Prayer (above, p. 195) and the
speech on cruelty to animals, below, p. 631.]
3 [On this subject, see Fors Clavigera, Letters 12 and 24 (Vol. XXVII. pp. 208,
431), and compare below, p. 529.]
510 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
homme est d'entretenir sa femme et ses enfants, celui d'une femme est
de le rendre heureux chez lui, et d'elever ses enfants sagement. Aucune
femme n'est capable de faire plus que cela. Aucune femme ne doit faire
moins, et un homme qui ne peut pas nourrir sa femme, et desire qu'elle
travaille pour lui, merite d'etre pendu au-dessus de sa porte.
Je suis, Madame, fidelement a vous,
J. RUSKIN.
TURNER'S "WINDMILL AND LOCK11
[From an article entitled "Ruskin on Luini at Logano " (sic) in the Sheffield
and Rotherham Independent, May 1, 1886 (" Weekly Supplement," p. 5). Reprinted
in John Rusltin: a Reminiscence, by John Holmes, p. 23. Ruskin's correspondent,
Mr. John Holmes, had written pointing out that " the lock was made to open the
wrong way — i.e., with instead of against the stream." The boat is going up stream
(as seems clearly to appear from the lie of the land), and the lock gates are closing
behind it, but closing from below instead of from above, which, as Mr. Holmes
pointed out, is impossible. For Ruskin's description of the mill in this plate in
Liber Studiorum, see Modern Painters, vol. iv. (Vol. VI. pp. 16-20).]
December 13, 1873.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have been long in replying to your letter, not having
access to the Liber Studiorum, as being at Brantwood ; and then I forgot
the matter for some time. Turner is assuredly wrong ; unless we can
imagine the stream to run the other way (up hill) and that would imply
other wrongness. He simply has not been minding what he was about.
Ever very truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
TO THE DERBY SCHOOL OF ART
[From a Report with the following title-page: "Derby Central School of
Art: | Report for the year 1872-1873, to which is added | Remarks addressed to
the students of the School, | by John Ruskin, Esq., M.A. | The Report is Reprinted
from the Derby \ Reporter, of Dec. 12th, 1873. | Derby: | W. and Jno. B. Pike,
Corn Market." Ruskin's letter occupies pp. 18-19. It was reprinted in the Book-
man, March 1900, p. 171.]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLKGE, OXFORD,
December, 1873.
MY DEAR STUDENTS, — I was very sorry not to come to you, but, which
may a little surprise you, I was more sorry that you wanted me to come ;
at least, that you wanted me so much as to take the pains to write and
sign your letter. Your pleasure in your work, and assurance of its success,
ought never to be dependent on any visitations of what you may consider
an artistically episcopal character, and you should never look for nourish-
ment or support to casual instruction. Work, with whatever immediate
knowledge you possess, honestly and unambitiously. When you find your-
selves in definite difficulty, and can ask a definite question, look about for
ARROWS OF THE CHACE . 511
somebody who can answer it ; but don't hold your mouths open, nor
prick up your ears, for casual sweetness of praise, or convenience of advice.
You will find, by the way, much of the best advice, when it comes, very
inconvenient.
I have twice repeated the word "casual," as being strongly opposed
in my thoughts to "constant." Of constant advice, you must get the best
you can, and obey it, first determining for yourselves what you want to
be advised about. What do you want to do ? — to carve, or paint, that is ?
If you don't want to do anything, be assured you'll never do it. If you
only come to the Art School to get your living, you may or may not get
your living ; but you certainly will never get, or learn, any Art.1
Is there anything in the world you want to draw ; any man in the
world whose work you want to do something like ? Would you like to
draw dogs ? cats ? mice ? rats ? four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie, or the
queen eating honey in the parlour ; 2 it doesn't matter what, if only you
want to draw it, and not merely to make a drawing to get a prize with.3
Then, secondly, have you got a master ? 4 I don't mean the master of
your school. He is your adviser and instructor ; but what do you want
him to make of you, — a Teniers ? or a Wilkie ? or a Gainsborough ? or a
Holbein ? Don't think which of these names sounds biggest, and say jou
want to be that. Think what you have seen and enjoyed of any of these
men's work. You probably never saw a Holbein in your lives, perhaps
never a Teniers, certainly never a Giotto. What have you seen that you
would like to do something like ?
You have seen Gustave Dore, Punch, the Illustrated News. Well, Mr.
Dore is very clever, so is Mr. Punch, so are the Illustrators of the News.
If you want to be like them, get what access you can to them, and give
up the hope of being artists ; be newsmen, contentedly ; and don't be
teased with lectures on the Fine Arts, or professors of them. But if you
want to paint, or carve rightly, choose some master of recognized and
quiet skill ; keep to his style, and try to match him, and beat him, at his
own weapons. Think only of him, while your work is inferior to his.
When you have beaten him, look for a better.
But if you cannot feel, in looking at any master, that he has merit
greater than others ; if you prefer nobody, enjoy nobody, but as you are
told : give up the effort to be a painter, and resolutely and finally enter
on some occupation of practical use. And this is all I could have told
you, in the substance of it, though I had come and talked for a year.
And so believe me, not less because I can't come,
Very sincerely and gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S. — I'm afraid this letter reads very curt and cross ; but the fact is,
it always puts me in a passion to think of Derbyshire.5 The whole county
is spoiled with " works " and railroads, there are no more trout in the
Compare The Two Paths, § 135 (Vol. XVI. p. 369).]
For other references by Ruskin to Nursery Rhymes, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 310.]
[Compare Vol. XVI. p. 120, and Vol. XXVII. pp. 150, 153.]
See above, p. 148.]
'See, below, the letters on Railways in Derbyshire, p. 668.]
512 . ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Dove, I believe, and you have got embankments and tunnels where there
were rocks and caves. All Schools of Art are nonsense, when you have
destroyed Nature ; one clean field and white cliff is worth any quantity of
schools and professors. But is there a green field left in all the county?
or a cliff, which wouldn't be blown up to-morrow, if there were lead enough
in it to pay for the gunpowder ?
"LABORARE EST ORARE"
[From the New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class, Aberdeen,
1874. Reprinted, under the above title, in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 210.]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
December 1873.
MY DEAR SIR, — I should much like to send your class some message,
but have no time for anything I like.
My own constant cry to all Bible readers is a very simple one, — Don't
think that Nature (human or other) is corrupt ; l don't think that you
yourself are elect out of it; and don't think to serve God by praying
instead of obeying.
Ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
RAPHAEL FOR LIVERPOOL
[From the Liverpool Daily Post, January 3, 1874, in which it was stated that
"a Liverpool gentleman has received the following letter from Mr. John Ruskin."
This is the letter which is referred to in Fors Clavigera, Letter 79 (Vol. XXIX.
p. 155), and which, when that volume went to press, the editors had not succeeded
in tracing. In Fors, however, Ruskin was there mistaken in saying that Liverpool
bought David Coxes instead of Raphael ; the Liverpool Gallery has no example of
Cox. Ruskin's letter was the subject of a hostile leading article in the Liverpool
Daily Post of January 7, 1874. The Raphael in question was the " Colonna "
Madonna, still (1908) in the National Gallery, on loan from Mr. Pierpont Morgan :
see Vol. XXII. p. 140.]
OXFORD, Dec. 31, 1873.
May I ask you before leaving for Italy (as I hear you intend), to do
the very truly good work of trying to keep a little piece of Italy here,
or in Liverpool. Yesterday I saw, not for the first time, and with con-
firmed conviction of its worth, the Raphael Madonna which is at present
offered to England, if she chooses to have any old art still among her
modern French or English splendours. The price is exorbitant ; so are all
1 [Compare the creed of the St. George's Guild : Vol. XXVIII. p. 419.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 513
prices just now. When I was a boy you might have bought a Turner
any day for £50, now you must give £1000. You might have bought
such a Raphael as this — if buyable at all — for perhaps £4000 or £5000 ;
now you are asked £40,000. My own impression is you might get it for
less. But what is £40,000 to Liverpool ? The picture has no price. There
has been no such Raphael in the market in my lifetime ; and unless the
mob sack Rome, there is little chance of there being another in anybody's
lifetime. I don't myself care supremely for Raphael ; never did. But
some people do, I believe ; and if Liverpool cares for a Raphael, here is
one, intensely characteristic and precious, in good state on the whole,
and worth I won't say what in money, but, in art, the whole exhibition
of the Royal Academy two years running. I do no more than my duty
in letting the merchants of Liverpool know of this picture. I have heard
of the generosity of their Mayor about the new Gallery,1 and it occurred
to me they might like a Raphael to put at the high end of it. I need
not say that I have no interest in the matter ; I don't even know to
whom the picture belongs. But I do very gravely think it would be
well for it to belong to the merchants of Liverpool.
Sir, believe me, most truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF ARCHITECTS
[This and the two following letters were printed in the Journal of the Royal
Institute of British Architects, February 10, 1900, vol. vii. (Third Series), pp. 143-145,
and reprinted in the Ruskin Union Journal, March 1900, No. 1, pp. 25-28. On
March 9, 1874, it had been resolved to award the Royal Gold Medal for that year
to Ruskin. He went to Italy shortly afterwards, and the Institute, without first
obtaining his concurrence, obtained the approval of the Queen for its choice. Ruskin
wrote from Rome (May 20), declining the medal (Letter 1). This placed the Institute
in a somewhat awkward position as regards the Sovereign, and Sir Gilbert Scott,
the President, wrote begging him to reconsider his decision. In Letters 2 and 3
he declined to do so. He trusted to Prince Leopold (as appears from private
letters) to explain any seeming disrespect on his part to the Sovereign. The fact
of Ruskin's refusal and the general gist of his letters had been published at the
time in the report of Sir Gilbert Scott's Presidential Address in November 1874
(see Sessional Papers 1874-1875, No. 1, pp. 9-12), but the letters themselves were
first printed in 1900.]
ROME, 20th May, 1874.
DEAR SIR, — I have before me your favour of the 25th March, advising
me of the honour done me by the Royal Institute of British Architects in
adjudging to me the Royal Medal for 1874.
The delay in my reply has been owing to the necessity for prolonged
reflection before adopting the line of conduct which, after such reflection,
1 [The Walker Art Gallery, erected at the sole expense of Sir Andrew Walker.]
514 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
I still find to be the only one open to me. Permit me in explanation of
it to state four facts.
1. The tomb of the Cardinal Brancacci at Naples, which, so far as my
present knowledge extends, is the most important example in Europe of
the architectural sculpture of the fifteenth century, is at present used as
the lumber-room of the church in which it stands,1 and I found, last month,
the folds of the drapery of its caryatides closed by cobwebs.
2. The church of San Miniato at Florence, the most beautiful example
of the twelfth-century architecture in that city,2 has been turned into a
common cemetery.
3. As I was drawing the cross carved on the spandril of the western
arch of the church of Santa Maria della Spina at Pisa, in 1872, it was
dashed to pieces by a mason before my eyes, and the pieces carried away,
that a model might be carved from them and set up in its stead.3
4. The railway at Furness is carried so near the Abbey that the ruins
vibrate at the passing of every luggage train ; and the buildings connected
with the station block the window over the altar of the Abbot's Chapel ;
so that nothing else can be seen through it.4
These four facts are, as the members of the Institute know, only too
accurately illustrative of the general agency of the public, and of the
builders employed by them, on the existing architecture of Europe ; —
consisting in the injurious neglect of the most precious works ; in the
destruction, under the name of restoration, of the most celebrated works,
for the sake of emolument; and in the sacrifice of any and all to tem-
porary convenience.
For the existence of this state of things we, the members, actual and
honorary, of the Institute of British Architects, are assuredly answerable,
at least in England ; and under these circumstances I cannot but feel that
it is no time for us to play at adjudging medals to each other; and
must, for my own poor part, very solemnly decline concurrence in such
complimentary formalities, whether as they regard others or myself. For
we have none of us, it seems to me, any right remaining either to bestow
or to receive honours ; and least of all those which proceed from the Grace,
and involve the Dignity, of the British Throne.
May I beg, Sir, that in communicating my reply to the members of
the Institute you will convey to them at the same time the assurance of
my personal respect, and of the profound regret with which I find myself
compelled to decline their intended kindness and courtesy ?
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
CHARLES L. EASTLAKE, ESQ., Secretary.
1 [St. Angelo a Nilo, built in 1385 by Cardinal Brancacci ; his tomb was the
joint work of Donatello and Michelozzo.]
2 [Compare Vol. XXIII. p. 241 ; for Ruskin's drawing of the church in 1845,
see Vol. XXXV. ; from the floor of the church he took the design for the cover
of Seven Lamps: see Vol. VIII. p. 185.]
3 [For this incident, see Fors Clavigera, Letters 18 and 20 (Vol. XXVII. pp.
315, 348).]
4 [Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 11 (VoL XXVII. p. 182).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 515
(2)
ASSISI, 12th June, 1874.
MY DEAR SIR GILBERT, — I have this morning received your letter, which
adds not a little to the pain I have felt in doing what I know to be
necessary in this case. It adds to the pain — it further assures me of the
necessity of my proceeding. That it should have been a friend who
"suggested" my name to the Institute makes me bitterly sorry to put this
friend in (what, however, only because he calls it so, I admit to be) a
ridiculous position. But that the Institute acted under his " suggestion "
very much adds to such personal motive of pride as I have in refusing
the Medal. Had they offered it me after I wrote The Stones of Venice,
twenty years ago, I should have gratefully and respectfully accepted it.
I now, proudly, refuse it. But I have never — very solemnly I say it —
allowed my pride to stand in the way of either courtesy or duty. I very
solemnly deny, and wish in the face of the public to deny, and am
thankful, though pained by it, for this opportunity of publicly denying,
that either the Architects' Institute or any other Dominant Association
of Artists in England, France, or Italy, is, or can be in the present day,
an Association for the Improvement of Architecture, or of any other art
by such Dominant Associations professed. The primary object of all such
Associations is to exalt the power of their own profession over the mind
of the public, power being in the present century synonymous with wealth.
And the root of all the evil and ruin which this century has seen (and
it has destroyed already more than the French Revolution did of what
that had left) is summed up in four words, " Commission on the Cost." 1
And, from any body of architects, however small, who will bind themselves
henceforward to accept a given salary (whatever amount, according to their
standing, they may choose to name) for their daily work, and to work
with their men (or at least with their own hands, on the sculpture of the
building) while they take such salary — from such a body I will take a
medal to-morrow.
That I have myself failed, I have, as you tell me, again and again con-
fessed. That I have made the most fatal mistakes I have also confessed.
That I have received no help, but met the most scornful opposition in
every effort I have ever made which came into collision with the pecuniary
interests of modern builders, may, perhaps in a degree more than I know,
have occasioned my failure.
But I now recognize many of my mistakes, and hope yet to accomplish
something before I die. It may be, but I trust will not be, single-handed,
but at all events it must be in association only with men who know their
business.
Now, you are well aware that I agree with every word of your In-
augural Address.2 As I read it — and I have read it all before concluding
» [Compare Vol. XVII. p. 390, and Vol. XXIII. pp. xli., 82, 94.]
* [See Papers read at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Session 1873-1874,
Opening: Address of the President, pp. 1-11. The sentence "at the top of page 6"
is as follows: "At all great periods of art, so far as we can gather from historical
records, or from the internal evidences so abundantly supplied by the actual works
XXXIV. 2 K
516 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
this answer to your remonstrance — I feel as if you had no other intention
in sending it than to justify my proceeding.
But I will employ in my justification only two sentences of it. I
will not copy — you can more easily read on my reference — the three lines
at the top of page 6. I think they violently overstate my own view of
the necessities of the profession. / should have written, not " their whole
heart," but the whole practical force of their heart. / should have written
not their "single" object, but their "principal" one. Putting that sen-
tence into such milder form, I can only say, if I believed there were ten
men in the Institute to whom it could be truly applied, I would take
the medal.
The other sentence I would refer to is in the seventh line from the
bottom of page 10 : —
"The public as a body scarcely know the difference between good
architecture and bad."
On which I must ask further, As a body, does the Institute? If it
does, why has it not taught the public ?
If it does not, shall I take the Medal, implying the recognition of its
authority ? I have only to say in conclusion that, having entirely loyal
feelings towards the Queen, I will trust to Her Majesty's true interpretation
of my conduct ; but, if formal justification of it be necessary for the public,
would plead that if a peerage or knighthood may without disloyalty be
refused, surely much more this minor grace proceeding from the Monarch
may be without impropriety declined by any of her subjects who wish to
serve her without reward, under exigency of peculiar circumstances.
Believe me, my dear Sir Gilbert, always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
Private* (3)
MY DEAR SIR GILBERT, — I have written the enclosed this morning
under unusual irritation caused me by the ravage of the lower church, and
miserable repainting of the higher one under the orders of Signer Caval-
caselle,1 and the destruction of one of the loveliest scenes in Italy, the
fountains between the buttresses of Santa Chiara.
I hope I have said nothing more than is right (at least in my view)
in consequence of this irritation. But I can only say that if I wrote, or
could write, as I feel, any day of my life, you would pity me, not be angry
with me. Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
which have been spared to us, there can be no room for doubt that the efforts,
the enthusiastic strivings, and the whole heart and soul of each artist, from the
humblest to the most exalted, were ever directed, as their single object, to the
advancement and perfection of tbe art on which they were engaged."]
1 [For Ruskin's mood at the moment, and subsequent meeting with Caval-
caselle, see Vol. XXHL pp. xl., xli.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 517
THE VALUE OF LECTURES
[From the Glasgow Herald, June 5, 1874. Reprinted in the Times of June 6,
1874; and in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 179, 180. In line 12, "fire-worky"
is a correction for "fire-working," and in line 21, "these" for "them"; the
corrections are made from a copy of the original letter in Mr. S. C. Cockerell's
possession. The letter was written to Mr. Chapman, of the Glasgow Athenaeum
Lecture Committee, in reply to a request that Ruskin would lecture at their
meetings during the winter. Writing from Oxford, four years later, in answer to
a similar request, Ruskin wrote as follows : —
"Nothing can advance art in any district of this accursed machine-
and-devil driven England until she changes her mind in many things,
and my time for talking is past. — Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. I
lecture here but only on the art of the past."
(Extract given in the Times, February 12, 1878, quoted from Muyfair.) In 1883,
however, Ruskin delivered a course on the contemporary Art of England
(Vol. XXXni.).]
ROME, 26th May, 1874.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have your obliging letter, but am compelled by increase
of work to cease lecturing except at Oxford — and practically there also —
for, indeed, I find the desire of audiences to be audiences only becoming an
entirely pestilent character of the age. Everybody wants to hear — nobody
to read — nobody to think ; to be excited for an hour — and, if possible,
amused ; to get the knowledge it has cost a man half his life to gather,
first sweetened up to make it palatable, and then kneaded into the smallest
possible pills — and to swallow it homoeopathically and be wise — this is the
passionate desire and hope of the multitude of the day.
It is not to be done. A living comment quietly given to a class on a
book they are earnestly reading — this kind of lecture is eternally necessary
and wholesome ; your modern fire-worky, smooth-downy-curry-and-strawberry-
ice-and-milk-punch-altogether lecture is an entirely pestilent and abominable
vanity ; and the miserable death of poor Dickens, when he might have
been writing blessed books till he was eighty, but for the pestiferous
demand of the mob, is a very solemn warning to us all, if we would
take it.1
God willing, I will go on writing, and as well as I can. There are
three volumes published of my Oxford lectures,2 in which every sentence
is set down as carefully as may be. If people want to learn from me, Jet
them read these or my monthly letter, Fors Clavigera. If they don't care
for these, I don't care to talk to them.
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [The evil result on Dickens' health of his last series of readings at St. James's
Hall, in the early part of 1870, scarcely four months before his death, is thus
noted by Mr. Forster : " Little remains to be told that has not in it almost un-
mixed sorrow and pain. Hardly a day passed, while the readings went on or
after they closed, nnvisited by some effect or other of the disastrous excitement
consequent on them" (L\fe of Charles Dickent, vol. iii. p. 493). See again, below,
p. 613. For other references, see Vol. XXIX. pp. 317-318 ; and compare above,
p. 275 n.]
2 [Lecture* on Art, Aratra Pentcfici, and The Eagles Ne#t.]
518 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
THE SLADE PROFESSORSHIP
[From the Monthly Journal of Education, July 1874, vol. i. p. 314. The letter was
in reply to " a circular letter to the various professors of the University of Oxford,
issued by the Vice-Chancellor, and asking for information as to matters connected
with the posts held by them."]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD [1874].
DEAR MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, — The question put to me in the circular
letter which I have had the honour to receive from you required difficult
thought before I could reply, and what reply can be made must be on
the assumption that at some no distant time the University may make
art one of its school subjects, else the professorship must remain a sinecure,
and resolve itself, in the hands of any competent and conscientious pro-
fessor, into the mastership of drawing for casual students, while an incom-
petent professor would merely give formal lectures which no one would
attend. But even as drawing master I am unable at present to act
efficiently without more space. The circular letter asks me for no infor-
mation as to material arrangements. I venture, without being asked, to
represent the absolute necessity (if the professorship is under any conditions
to be effective) of the addition of a room for University students, entirely
separate from the schools of elementary drawing ; and of the further
provision of at least two workshops, for modelling, metal work, and other
collateral mechanical operations.1
Supposing that art is, under future modification of the examination
system, made a school subject, two readerships — one in painting, the other in
modelling — ought assuredly to be established in connection with the Slade
Professorships, but in such subordination to it as may secure the harmonious
agency of the three teachers, together with that of the master of elementary
drawing, for whose office I have myself been permitted to make provision.
I remain, dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE POSITION OF CRITICS
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, January 19, 1875. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. ii. pp. 241, 242. In line 10, "sums" was misprinted "seems" both
in the Gazette and in Arrows. The Pall Mull Gazette of January 14 and 18 had
contained two long letters on the subject from "A Reviewer." For references
to other passages in which Rusk in discusses the functions of criticism, see
Vol. XXXIII. p. 394 n.j
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BHANTWOOD, Jan. 18 [1875].
SIR, — I see you are writing of criticism ; some of your readers may,
perhaps, be interested in hearing the notions of a man who has dabbled in
it a good many years. I believe, in a word, that criticism is as impertinent
1 [Ruskin was constantly asking for additional accommodation, which the Uni-
versity did not grant : compare Vol. XXXIII. pp. Ivi., 363, 476. For his original
scheme of classes in metal work, etc., see Vol. XX. p. 22.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 519
in the world as it is in a drawing-room. In a kindly and well-bred
company, if anybody tries to please them, they try to be pleased ; if
anybody tries to astonish them, they have the courtesy to be astonished ;
if people become tiresome, they ask somebody else to play, or sing, or
what not, but they don't criticise. For the rest, a bad critic is probably
the most mischievous person in the world (Swift's Goddess of Criticism in
the Tale of a Tub sums what need be represented, on that subject 1), and
a good one, the most helpless and unhappy : the more he knows, the less
he is trusted, and it is too likely he may become morose in his unacknow-
ledged power. A good executant, in any art, gives pleasure to multitudes,
and breathes an atmosphere of praise, but a strong critic is every man's
adversary, — men feel that he knows their foibles, and cannot conceive that
he knows more. His praise, to be acceptable, must be always unqualified ;
his equity is an offence instead of a virtue ; and the art of correction,
which he has learned so laboriously, only fills his hearers with disgust.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
'
THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS
[From the World, June 9, 1875. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii.
pp. 235-237. The letter refers to au article on Ruskin's method of publication which
appeared in the World of May -6, 1875. It was entitled " Ruskin to the Rescue,"
and with the criticism to which Ruskin alludes, strongly approved the idea of some
reform being attempted in the matter of the publication of books. For Ruskin's
reforms in the matter, see Vol. XXVII. pp. Ixxxii.-lxxxvi. The present letter was
quoted in an article on " Mr. Ruskin, Artist and Publisher," by Percy Fitzgerald,
in the Gentleman's Magazine, February 1890 (p. 136). Ruskin refers to this letter
to the World in one to F. S. Ellis of July 4, 1875 (see Vol. XXXVII.).]
To the Editor of the " World "
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, June 6, 1875.
Sm, — I am very grateful for the attention and candour with which you
have noticed my effort to introduce a new method of publishing.
Will you allow me to explain one or two points in which I am gener-
ally misunderstood ? I meant to have asked your leave to do so at some
length, but have been entirely busy, and can only say, respecting two of
your questions, what in my own mind are the answers.
I. " How many authors are strong enough to do without advertise-
ments ? "
None : while advertisement is the practice. But let it become the
fashion to announce books once for all in a monthly circular (publisher's,
1 [The Goddess of Criticism, with Ignorance and Pride for her parents, Opinion
for her sister, and for her children Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity,
Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners, is described in the Battle of the Books — the
paper which follows, and is a companion to the Tale of a Tub. For another refer-
ence to the Tale, see Vol. IV. p. 337.]
520 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
for instance), and the public will simply refer to that for all they want to
know. Such advertisement I use now, and always would.
II. " Why has he determined to be his own publisher ? "
I wish entirely to resist the practice of writing for money early in life.
I think an author's business requires as much training as a musician's, and
that, as soon as he can write really well, there would always, for a man
of worth and sense, be found capital enough to enable him to be able to
print, say, a hundred pages of his careful work ; which if the public were
pleased with, they would soon enable him to print more. I do not think
young men should rush into print, nor old ones modify their books to
please publishers.
III. And it seems to me, considering that the existing excellent books
in the world would — if they were heaped together in great towns — over-
top their cathedrals, that at any age a man should think long before he
invites his neighbours to listen to his sayings on any subject whatever. ^
What I do, therefore, is done only in the conviction, foolish, egotistic,
whatever you like to call it, but firm, that I am writing what is needful
and useful for my fellow-creatures ; that if it is so, they will in due time
discover it, and that before due time I do not want it discovered. And
it seems to me that no sound scholar or true well-wisher to the people
about him would write in any other temper. I mean to be paid for my
work, if it is worth payment. Not otherwise. And it seems to me my
mode of publication is the proper method of ascertaining that fact. I had
much more to say, but have no more time, and am, sir, very respectfully
yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
[Addressed to Mr. Egbert Rydings (for whom see Vol. XXVIII. p. 768). The
letter was printed in the privately issued Letters upon Subjects of General Interest
from John Ruskin to various Correspondents, 1892 (No. 19), pp. 63-64.]
OXFORD, June 18, 1875.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am much interested in your letter. In the strongest
conviction I would assert that the father should never provide for his
children. He should educate and maintain them to the very best of his
power till they are of mature age, never living upon them in their youth
(damned modernism eats its own children young and excuses its own avarice
by them when they are old !). When they are strong enough, throw them
out of the nest as the bird does. But let the nest be always open to them.
No guilt should ever stand between child and parent. Doors always open
to daughter-harlot or son-thief, if they come. But no fortune left to
them. Father's house open ; nothing more. Honourable children will have
their own houses — if needs be provide for their parents, not their parents
for them.
Truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 521
ART AND SMOKE.
[Date and place of original publication unknown. Reprinted in Arrows of the
Chace, vol. ii. p. 181, under the title " The Cradle of Art." The letter was in
answer to a request of the Sheffield Society of Artists similar to that replied to in
a preceding letter (above, p. 517). The Sheffield letter was the subject of a cartoon
in Fun, March 29, 1876, entitled " Playing with Edged Tools/' with a caricature
portrait of <f Saint Rusty" and verses (p. 138) on "The Dotage of Doggy Snarler."]
18th Feb., 1876.
MY DEAR SIR, — I lose a frightful quantity of time because people
won't read what I ask them to read, nor believe anything of what I tell
them, and yet ask me to talk whenever they think they can take a shilling
or two at the door by me. I have written fifty times, if once, that you
can't have art where you have smoke ; * you may have it in hell, perhaps,
for the Devil is too clever not to consume his own smoke, if he wants to.
But you will never have it in Sheffield. You may learn something about
nature, shrivelled, and stones, and iron ; and what little you can see of that
sort, I'm going to try and show you.2 But pictures, never.
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
If for no other reason, no artist worth sixpence in a day would live in
Sheffield, nor would any one who cared for pictures — for a million a year.
BLAKKS POEMS
[From Messrs. Sotheby's Catalogue of Autograph Letters sold by them on 21st
May 1890 (No. 98). Reprinted in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. pp. 62-63, and
thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 90-91 (No. 94). The "precious little
book " is Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, edited and prefaced
by Richard Herne Shepherd (Pickering, 1868). A selection of the Poems had been
included in vol. ii. of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake (1863), the
selection being made by D. G. Rossetti, who took many liberties with the text.
Shepherd's text followed the author's MS. For other letters to Mr. Shepherd
(compiler of the first Bibliography of Ruskin), see p. 537.]
BBANTWOOD, 8th May, 1876.
MY DEAR SIR, — Putting my books in order after a long interval, I find
to-day your gift of Aug. 6th, 1874, never before seen by me. It came
when I was in Italy, and I have never got my books sifted since ! I am
very sorry, for I would fain have thanked you at once for the precious
little book, of which you must have thought me so careless. But, as I
now glance through it, I am a little pained by what, I suppose, is its
1 [See, for instance, Vol. V. p. 232, and Vol. XX. pp. 107, 290.]
the St George's Museum.]
522 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
truth of text, but is nevertheless not satisfactory after Rossetti's emen-
dations. You do not, I think, make clear enough in your preface the
authority for your readings. In the tiger, for instance, Rossetti's " What
dread hand made thy dread feet ? " is far more striking (to me) than
your " What dread hand and what," etc., which is forced and unintelligible.
Will you kindly tell me more clearly the relations of your text to
Rossetti's in such particulars ? and believe me already, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
R. H. SHEPHERD, Esq., Editor of Blake's Poems,
Care of Mr. Pickering, 196, Piccadilly, London.
[From Eraser's Magazine, July 1876, N.S., vol. xiv. pp. 121-123. Reprinted
in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 43-50. The article in the June number was
entitled "Remarks on Modern Warfare, by a Military Officer." The article was
signed " P. S. C." For Ruskin's interest in military history, see Vol. XXXI.
E. 477-478 ; and on the subject of the present letter, compare Fors Clavigera,
tter 4 (Vol. XXVII. p. 74).]
To the Editor of " Fr user's Magazine "
[1876.]
SIR, — The article on modern warfare in your last June number contains
statements of so great importance to public interests, that I do not hesitate
to ask you to spare me space for a question or two respecting it, which
by answering, your contributor may make the facts he has brought forward
more valuable for practical issues.
The statistics x given in the second column of page 695, on which P. S. C.
rests his "incontestable" conclusion that "battles are less sanguinary than
they were," are incomplete in this vital respect, that they furnish us only
with the proportion, and not with the total number, of combatants slain.
A barricade fight between a mob of rioters a thousand strong, and a
battery of artillery, in which fifty reformers get shot, is not "less sangui-
nary " than a street quarrel between three topers, of whom one gets knocked
on the head with a pewter pot : though no more than the twentieth part
of the forces on one side fall in the first case, and a third of the total
forces engaged, in the second. Nor could it be proved by the exhibition
of these proportions of loss, that the substitution of explosive shells, as
offensive weapons, for pewter pots, rendered wounds less painful, or war
more humane.
Now, the practical difference between ancient and modern war, as carried
on by civilized nations, is, broadly, of this kind. Formerly, the persons
who had quarrelled settled their differences by the strength of their own
arms, at the head of their retainers, with comparatively inexpensive weapons
such as they could conveniently wield ; weapons which they had paid for
1 [See the tables given on the next page.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
523
out of their own pockets, and with which they struck only the people they
meant to strike : while, nowadays, persons who quarrel fight at a distance,
with mechanical apparatus, for the manufacture of which they have taxed
the public, and which will kill anybody who happens to be in the way ;
gathering at the same time, to put into the way of them, as large a quantity
of senseless and innocent mob as can be beguiled, or compelled, to the
slaughter. So that, in the words of your contributor, " Modern armies are
not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn ; they
represent — in fact are — whole nations in arms." I have only to correct
this somewhat vague and rhetorical statement by pointing out that the per-
sons in arms, led out for mutual destruction, are by no means " the whole
nation " on either side, but only the individuals of it who are able-bodied,
honest, and brave, selected to be shot, from among its invalids, rogues, and
cowards.
The deficiencies in your contributor's evidence as to the totality of loss
do not, however, invalidate his conclusion that, out of given numbers en-
gaged, the mitrailleuse kills fewer than the musket.1 It is, nevertheless,
a very startling conclusion, and one not to be accepted without closer
examination of the statistics on which it is based. I will, therefore,
tabulate them in a simpler form, which the eye can catch easily, omitting
only one or two instances which add nothing to the force of the evidence.
In the six under-named battles of bygone times, there fell, according
to your contributor's estimate, out of the total combatants —
At Austerlitz
Jena .
Waterloo
Marengo
Salamanca
Eylau .
1/7
1/6
1/5
1/4
1/3
1/2*
while in the under-named five recent battles the proportion of loss was —
At Koniggratz
Gravelotte .
Solferino .
Worth
Sedan
1/15
1/12
1/11
1/11
1/10
Now, there is a very important difference in the character of the battles
named in these two lists. Every one of the first six was decisive, and both
sides knew that it must be so when the engagement began, and did their
best to win. But Koniggratz was only decisive by sudden and appalling
demonstration of the power of a new weapon.2 Solferino was only half
fought, and not followed up because the French Emperor had exhausted
his corps d'elite at Magenta, and could not (or, at least, so it is reported)
1 ["The proportion of killed and wounded," wrote P. S. C., "was far greater
with the old-fashioned weapons than it is at the present day."]
» [It was the success of Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War against Austria (com-
pleted at Koniggratz, or Sadowa (July 3, 1866), which led to the general adoption
of breech-loading guns.]
524 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
depend on his troops of the line. Worth was an experiment; Sedan a dis-
couraged ruin ; Gravelotte was, I believe, well contested, but I do not
know on what extent of the line, and we have no real evidence as to the
power of modern mechanics for death, until the proportions are calculated,
not from the numbers engaged, but from those under fire for equal times.
Now, in all the upper list of battles, probably every man of both armies
was under fire, and some of the regiments under fire for half the day ;
while in the lower list of battles, only fragments of the line were hotly
engaged, and the dispute on any point reaching its intensity would be
ended in half an hour.
That the close of contest is so rapid may indeed be one of the con-
ditions of improvement in our military system alleged by your correspon-
dent ; and the statistics he has brought forward do indeed clearly prove
one of two things — either that modern weapons do not kill, or that modern
soldiers do not fight as effectually as in old times. I do not know if this
is thought a desirable change in military circles; but I, as a poor civilian,
beg to express my strong objection to being taxed six times over what I
used to be, either for the equipment of soldiers who rarely fight, or the
manufacture of weapons which rarely kill. It may be perfectly true that
our last cruise on the Baltic : was " less sanguinary " than that which con-
cluded in Copenhagen. But we shook hands with the Danes after fighting
them, and the differences between us were ended : while our expensive
contemplation of the defences of Cronstadt leaves us still in daily dread of
an inspection by the Russians of those of Calcutta.
It is true that the ingenuity of our inventors is far from being exhausted,
and that in a few years more we may be able to destroy a regiment round
a corner and bombard a fleet over the horizon ; but I believe the effective
result of these crowning scientific successes will only be to confirm the
at present partial impression on the minds of military and naval officers,
that their duty is rather to take care of their weapons than to use them.
"England will expect"2 of her generals and admirals to maintain a digni-
fied moral position as far as possible out of the enemy's sight : and in a
perfectly scientific era of seamanship we shall see two adverse fleets affected
by a constant law of mutual repulsion at distances of two or three hundred
miles ; while in either squadron, an occasional collision between the leading
ships, or inexplicable foundering of the last improved ones, will make these
prudential manoeuvres on the whole as destructive of the force, and about
ten times more costly to the pocket, of the nation, than the ancient, and,
perhaps, more honourable tactics of poorly-armed pugnacity.
There is, however, one point touched upon in P. S. C.'s letter, to me
the most interesting of all, with respect to which the data for accurate
comparison of our former and present systems are especially desirable,
though it never seems to have occurred to your correspondent to collect
them — the estimates, namely, of the relative destruction of civil property.
Of wilful destruction, I most thankfully acknowledge the cessation in
Christian warfare ; and in the great change between the day of the sack
1 [For other references to the Baltic expedition in the Crimean War, see
Vol. XVIII. p. 511 ; Vol. XXVIII. p. 95 ; and Vol. XXXIII. p. 509.]
2 [For another reference to Nelson's signal at Trafalgar, see Vol. XX. p. 42.]
525
of Magdeburg1 and that of the march into Paris, recognize a true sign of
the approach of the reign of national peace. But of inevitable destruc-
tion— of loss inflicted on the peasant by the merely imperative require-
ments and operations of contending armies — it will materially hasten the
advent of such peace, if we ascertain the increasing pressure during our
nominally mollified and merciful war. The agricultural losses sustained by
France in one year are estimated by your correspondent at one hundred
and seventy millions of pounds. Let him add to this sum the agricultural
loss necessitated in the same year throughout Germany, through the with-
drawal of capital from productive industry, for the maintenance of her
armies; and of labour from it by their composition; and, for third item,
add the total cost of weapons, horses, and ammunition on both sides ; and
let him then inform us whether the cost, thus summed, of a year's actual
war between two European States, is supposed by military authorities to
be fairly representative of that which the settlement of political dispute
between any two such Powers, with modern instruments of battle, will on
an average, in future, involve. If so, I will only venture further to suggest
that the nations minded thus to try their quarrel should at least raise the
stakes for their match before they make the ring, instead of drawing bills
for them upon futurity. For that the money-lenders whose pockets are
filled, while everybody else's are emptied, by recent military finance, should
occultly exercise irresistible influence, not only on the development of our
— according to your contributor — daily more harmless armaments, but also
on the deliberation of Cabinets, and passions of the populace, is inevitable
under present circumstances ; 2 and the exercise of such influence, however
advantageous to contractors and projectors, can scarcely be held consistent
either with the honour of a Senate or the safety of a State.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S. — I wish I could get a broad approximate estimate of the expendi-
ture in money, and loss of men by France and Prussia in the respective
years of Jena and Sedan, and by France and Austria in the respective years
of Arcola and Solferino.3
"A GENTLE SCHOLAR"
[From an article thus headed in the Manchester Guardian, March 24, 1898 —
giving a memoir of Mr. James Taylor, who had recently died. He was an errand-
boy and afterwards a telegraph-clerk, who obtained the B.A. degree of London
University. " His love of literature, the ardour of his pursuit of knowledge, and
1 [In 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, when the whole town, with the ex-
ception of the Cathedral, the Fraueukirche, and a few bouses, was burned to the
ground, and 30,000 of its 36,000 inhabitants were butchered without regard to age
or sex.]
2 [Compare Unto this Last, § 76 n. (Vol. XVII. pp. 103-104).]
3 [For other references to 'these battles (1796 and 1859), see Vol. XXIX.
p. 287 n.]
526 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
the gentleness and purity of his character made him a general favourite." A
meeting was held in honour of his degree, and letters were read on the occasion
from Gladstone (who sent Mr. Taylor one of his books) and Ruskin. Mr. Taylor
subsequently obtained a post in the Manchester and Salford Bank.]
VENICE, November 13, 1876.
MY DEAR SIR, — Your letter only reaches me to-day, and I fear my reply
may be too late to be read at the meeting; and perhaps even if in time,
you will scarcely think the pleasure or the object of the meeting likely
to be promoted by it. For, indeed, while asking you to convey my true
congratulations to Mr. Taylor, I have yet no assured words of sympathy
to give to a meeting held in his honour on the simple ground of his
having advanced under grave disadvantages to such eminence in the ele-
ments of modern education as his degree certifies. It is proved thereby
that he is gifted by nature with unusually acute and earnest intelligence ;
but until I know with what motives he has desired to raise himself, and
what use he intends to make of the position he has gained, I can only
congratulate — I cannot, without further knowledge, in the full sense of the
word, honour. I should have at once concurred with my whole heart in
the object of your meeting if it had been to do reverence to a telegraph
boy who had become a telegraph man ; had perfected the system of sig-
nals under his control, and effected definite improvement in the character
and increase in the comfort of his equals, and generally of his class. My
own endeavours, any careful reader of my addresses to working men must
know, have always been to prevail upon them to put their valour into
common work and seek for happiness in humble life.1 The few who can
rise above the general level are, of course, notable to me in their private
characters ; but I doubt the advantage of their example and the tenour of
their influence with their inferiors, at least until I see them joining heart
and hand in an endeavour to organize laws of labour which may rightly
ennoble the occupation and reward the industry of all true and loyal
members of their class.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY
[From a pamphlet with the following title-page : —
The | Science of Life : | A Pamphlet | Addressed to | All Members of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, | And to | All who are or will be
teachers, clergymen, | Fathers. | A 0 6EOZ EKA0API2E | ST | MH | KOINOT
| " What God hath cleansed, that call not thou unclean." | Price Sixpence.
| London : | J. Burns, 15, Southampton Row, Holborn, W.C. | Oxford.
A. R. Mowbray & Co., 116, St. Aldate's. | 1877-
Ruskin's letters, addressed to the author of the pamphlet, occupied pp. 6-8. There
was a second edition in 1878 (Ruskin's letters, pp. 5-8) ; this contained the first
1 [Compare Ruskin's evidence given to the Select Committee on Public Insti-
tutions in 1860, Vol. XVI. p. 474.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 527
and last of these letters, whilst only the first edition contained the last letter but
one. Some passages also in the other letters are omitted in the first edition, and
a few slight alterations are made in the second in the letter of February 10. The
series of letters were reprinted in Arrows of the Chace (under the above heading
added by the editor), vol. ii. pp. 212-220.1 Numerous extracts from them were
cited in The Instinct of Love, by F. B. Money-Coutts, 1885. In another book,
entitled The Ethics of Love (Walsall, W. H. Robinson ; London, Simpkin, Marshall
and Co.), 1881, there is the following note on the title-page: — "Mr. J. Ruskin has
written to the Author to this effect : ' It seems to me all right and quite able
to stand on its own ground. ... It will be well received, I doubt not. . . . Trust
to your own earnestness, and to the absolute use of the truths you speak.'"]
(1)
VENICE, February 8th, 1877.
MY DEAR , This is a nobly done piece of work of yours — a fireman's
duty in fire of hell ; and I would fain help you in all I could, but my way
of going at the thing would be from the top down — putting the fire out
with the sun, not with vain sprinklings. People would say I wasn't prac-
tical, as usual, of course ; 2 but it seems to me the last thing one should do
in the business is to play Lord Angelo,3 and set bar and door to deluge.
Not but I should sift the windows of our Oxford printsellers, if I had my
full way in my Art Professorship; but I can't say the tenth part of what
I would. I'm in the very gist and main effort of quite other work, and
can't get my mind turned to this rightly, for this, in the heart of it, involves,
— well, to say the whole range of moral philosophy, is nothing ; this, in
the heart of it, one can't touch unless one knew the moral philosophy of
angels also, and what that means, "but are as the angels in heaven."4
For indeed there is no true conqueror of Lust but Love ; and in this
beautifully scientific day of the British nation, in which you have no God
to love any more, but only an omnipotent coagulation and copulation : in
which you have no Law nor King to love any more, but only a competi-
tion and a constitution, and the oil of anointing for king and priest used
to grease your iron wheels down hill : when you have no country to love
any more, but " patriotism is nationally what selfishness is individually," 6
such the eternally-damned modern view of the matter — the moral syphilis
of the entire national blood : and, finally, when you have no true bride
and groom to love each other any more, but a girl looking out for a
carriage and a man for a position, what have you left on earth to take
pleasure in, except theft and adultery ?
1 [A few corrections are now made from Ruskin's copy of Arrows — namely, in
Letter (1), line 16, "and" for "for" after "coagulation"; in Letter (3), line 5,
"now" is inserted, and "once" is a correction for "one"; the last word of
Letter (5), "heart," is a correction for "hearts."]
1 [Compare Vol. XXVIII. p. 193.]
» 'See Measure for Measure.]
• 'Mark xii. 25.]
8 [For further notice by Ruskin of this maxim, which occurs in Herbert Spencer's
Study of Sociology, p. 205, see the article on " Home and its Economies " (Vol. XVII.
p. 556), and the Preface to Xenophon's Economist, Vol. XXXI. p. 24.]
528 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
The two great vices play into each other's hands. Ill-got money is
always finally spent on the harlot. Look at Hogarth's two 'prentices ; l the
sum of social wisdom is in that bit of rude art-work, if one reads it
solemnly.
(2)
VENICE, February Wth [1877].
Hence, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to send you
some words of warning to English youths, for the ruin of this mighty city
was all in one word — fornication. Fools who think they can write history
will tell you it was " the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope," 2 and the
like ! Alas ! it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in God and
His Law.
For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this evil by mere
heroism and common sense. Not many men are heroes ; not many are rich
in common sense. They will train for a boat race ; will they for the race
of life ? For the applause of the pretty girls in blue on the banks ; yes.
But to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own for ever,
will they? Not as things are going, I think, though how or where they
are to go or end is to me at present inconceivable.
8
You think, perhaps, I could help you therefore with a lecture on good
taste and Titian ? No, not at all ; I might with one on politics, but that
everybody would say was none of my business. Yet to understand the
real meaning of the word "Sire," with respect to the rider as well as the
horse, is indeed the basis of all knowledge, in policy, chivalry, and social
order.
All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told ;
but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation exists
again between the father and the mother and their son. To deserve his
confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in trust to them by
God : to be the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and both
his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, and amazement of his
young life. My friend, while you still teach in Oxford the "philosophy,"
forsooth, of that poor cretinous wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavouring
to open other " careers " to English women than that of the Wife and
the Mother, you won't make your men chaste by recommending them to
leave off tea.4
1 [Of this series of designs, Hogarth said : " Industry and Idleness exemplified in
the conduct of two fellow 'prentices ; where the one, by taking good courses, and
pursuing points for which he was put apprentice, becomes a valuable man and an
ornament to his country ; the other, by giving way to idleness, naturally falls into
poverty, and ends fatally. As the prints were intended more for use than ornament,
they were done in a way that might bring them within the purchase of whom they
might most concern" (John Ireland's Hogarth Illustrated, 1791, vol. i. p. 260). For
the plates themselves, see ibid., pp. 253 seq.~\
2 [Compare St. Mark's Rest, Vol. XXIV. p. 235.]
3 [The dots here, and on the next page, were in the original pamphlet, indi-
cating omissions.]
4 [" I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill was not intended
for separate publication ; and to explain that in a subsequent but unpublished letter
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 520
VENICE, llth February [1877].
My DEAR - , I would say much more, if I thought any one would
believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to the
discipline of youth — in having no food any more to offer to their imagina-
tion. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and the young
soldier thinks now of the hurdle-race as once of the lists and the field —
but the nobler temper will not train for that trial with equal joy. Clerical
eminence — the bishopric or popular pastorship — may be tempting to men
of genial pride or sensitive conceit : but the fierce blood that would have
burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a saint — what "career" has
your modern philosophy to offer to it ?
The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the
best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the
realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves the
part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready to suck
in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be presented
to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic and casino
Paradise.
All these disadvantages, you will say, are inevitable, and need not be
dwelt upon. In my own school of St. George I mean to avoid them by
simply making the study of Christianity a true piece of intellectual work ;
my boys shall at least know what their fathers believed, before they make
up their own wise minds to disbelieve it. They shall be infidels, if they
choose, at thirty ; but only students, and very modest ones, at fifteen.
But I shall at least ask of modern science so much help as shall enable
me to begin to teach them at that age the physical laws relating to their
own bodies, openly, thoroughly, and with awe ; and of modern civilization,
I shall ask so much help as may enable me to teach them what is indeed
right, and what wrong, for the citizen of a state of noble humanity to do,
and permit to be done, by others, unaccused.
And if you can found two such chairs in Oxford — one, of the Science
of Physical Health ; the other, of the Law of Human Honour — you need
not trim your Horace, nor forbid us our chatty afternoon tea.
I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were only time, or
if it would be of any use — about the misappliance of the imagination. But,
really, the essential thing is the founding of real schools of instruction for
both boys and girls — first, in domestic medicine and all that it means; and
secondly, in the plain moral law of all humanity : " Thou shalt not commit
adultery," with all that it means.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
Ruskiu explained it to refer to Mill's ' utter deficiency in the powers of the imagina-
tion.' — The last words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet
dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet" (Editor's note in Arrows of the Chaw,
vol. ii. p. 215.) For other references to "other careers for women," se« above,
p. 609.]
530 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
(4)
VENICK, 12th February, 77.
MY DEAR , Two words more, and an end. I have just re-read the
paper throughout. There are two omissions which seem to me to need
serious notice.
The first, that the entire code of counsel which you have drawn up,
as that which a father should give his son, must be founded on the
assumption that, at the proper time of life, the youth will be able, no
less than eager, to marry. You ought certainly to point out, incidentally,
what in my St. George's work I am teaching primarily, that unless this first
economical condition of human society be secured, all props and plasters of
its morality will be in vain.
And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as
if it were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one pro-
perly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is Love,
not Lust ; that is the relation in which " male and female created He
them";1 putting into them, indeed, to be distinctly restrained to the
office of fruitfulness, the brutal passion of Lust : but giving them the
spiritual power of Love, that each spirit might be greater and purer by
its bond to another associate spirit, in this world, and that which is to
come ; help-mates, and sharers of each other's joy for ever.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(5)
MALHAM, July 3rd, 1878.
DEAR , I wish I were able to add a few more words, with energy
and clearness, to my former letters, respecting a subject of which my best
strength — though in great part lately given to it, has not yet enforced
the moment ; — the function, namely, of the arts of Music and Dancing as
leaders and governors of the bodily, and instinctive mental, passions.2 No
nation will ever bring up its youth to be at once refined and pure, till
its Masters have learned the use of all the Arts, and primarily of these ;
till they again recognize the gulf that separates the Doric and Lydian
modes, and perceive the great ordinance of Nature, that the pleasures
which, rightly ordered, exalt, discipline, and guide the hearts of men, if
abandoned to a reckless and popular DzV-order, as surely degrade, scatter,
and deceive alike the passions and intellect.
I observe in the journals of yesterday, announcement that the Masters
of many of our chief schools are at last desirous of making the elements
of Greek art one of the branches of their code of instruction : but that
they imagine such elements may be learned from plaster casts of elegant
limbs and delicate noses.
They will find that Greek art can only be learned from Greek law,
and from the religion which gives Law of life to all the nations of the
1 [Genesis i. 27.]
2 [For references to Ruskin's views on this subject, see Vol. XXVII. p. Ixxiii.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 581
earth. Let our youth once more learn the meaning of the words " Music/'
"Chorus," and "Hymn" practically; and with the understanding that all
such practice, from lowest to highest, is, if rightly done, always in the
presence and to the praise of God ; and we shall have gone far to shield
them in a noble peace and glorious safety from the darkest questions
and the foulest sins that have perplexed and consumed the youth of past
generations for the last four hundred years.
Have you ever heard the charity children sing in St. Paul's ? Suppose
we sometimes allowed God the honour of seeing our Noble children col-
lected in like manner to sing to Him, what, think you, might be the effect
of such a festival — even if only held once a year — on the National manners
and heart ?
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MODERN RESTORATION
[This letter was originally received by ec a Liverpool gentleman," and sent
enclosed in a long letter signed "An Antiquarian," to the Liverpool Daily Post,
where it appeared June 9, 1877. Quoted from that paper in an article headed
"Mr. Ruskin on Modern Restoration" in the British Architect and Northern
Engineer, June 16, 1877, vol. vii. p. 366. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i.
p. 234. " Stone-layers " is here a correction for " stone-lawyers."]
VENICE, 15th April, 1877.
Mv DEAR SIR, — It is impossible for any one to know the horror and
contempt with which I regard modern restoration — but it is so great that
it simply paralyses me in despair, — and in the sense of such difference
in all thought and feeling between me and the people I live in the
midst of, almost makes it useless for me to talk to them. Of course all
restoration is accursed architect's jobbery, and will go on as long as they
can get their filthy bread by such business. But things are worse here
than in England : you have little there left to lose — here, every hour is
ruining buildings of inestimable beauty and historical value — simply to keep
stone-layers at work. I am obliged to hide my face from it all, and work
at other things, or I should die of mere indignation and disgust.
Ever truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
RIBBESFORD CHURCH
[This letter was printed iu the Kidderminster Times, July 28, 1877- Reprinted
in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. pp. 235-236. Ribbesford Church was finally closed
after the morning service on Sunday, July 15, 1877. It was then restored, and
was reopened and reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. The Kidderminster Times of
July 21, 1877, contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners to
consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this letter to " copy-
ing" the traceries.]
XXXIV. 2 L
582 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
To the Editor of the " Kidderminster Times "
BRANTWOOD, July 24, 1877.
SIR, — It chanced that, on the morning of the Sunday, when the ap-
pearances of danger in the walls of Ribbesford Church began seriously to
manifest themselves (according to the report in your columns of the 21st
inst.), I was standing outside of the church, listening to the singing of the
last hymn as the sound came through the open door (with the Archer
Knight sculptured above it), and showing to the friend who had brought
me 1 to the lovely place the extreme interest of the old perpendicular
traceries in the freehand working of the apertures.
Permit me to say, with reference to the proposed restoration of the
church, that no modern architect, no mason either, can, or would if they
could, "copy" those traceries. They will assuredly put up with geomet-
rical models in their place, which will be no more like the old traceries
than a Kensington paper pattern is like a living flower. Whatever else
is added or removed, those traceries should be replaced as they are, and
left in reverence until they moulder away.2 If they are already too much
decayed to hold the glass safely (which I do not believe), any framework
which may be necessary can be arranged to hold the casements within
them, leaving their bars entirely disengaged, and merely kept from falling
by iron supports. But if these are to be "copied," why in the world
cannot the congregation pay for a new and original church, to display
the genius and wealth of the nineteenth century somewhere else, and
leave the dear old ruin to grow grey by Severn side in peace ?
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
THE TEACHING OF SINGING
[In the Birmingham Daily Post, September 28, 1887, is a letter from Mr. Charles
Lunn, in which he says : " It may interest some of your readers to learn what views
Mr. Ruskin holds as regards the art of song. Many years ago he wrote me ..."
Then follows the letter here given. Mr. Lurm added : " I may add that the passages
on music in Fors were written for me." This presumably fixes the date as about
1877.]
1877.
I mean the children to be taught pure and perfect, but simple, choral
music, arranged to noble words, such as they can understand and desire to
sing. They shall be disciplined so thoroughly that a false note shall be im-
possible to them ; they shall never sing anything difficult or wonderful, but
only what is beautiful, right, and well within their powers ; and those who
1 [Mr. George Baker, with whom Ruskin was at this time staying. On July 15
they drove to Kidderminster and the Severn.]
2 [On this subject, compare Vol. XIII. p. 553.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 533
do not enjoy such singing for its own sake, and whose affectation or vanity
is unconquerable, shall be put out of the choirs. I am chiefly at a loss for
the music itself, and it will be long before I can get any small part of
what I want accomplished ; but the enforcing ' of accurate musical educa-
tion as a quite necessary, unpretending, and sacred duty will be much.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY
[From the Socialist, an Advocate of Love, Truth, Justice, etc., etc. Printed
and published by the proprietor, W. Freeland, 52, Scotland Street, Sheffield,
November 1877. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 107, 108. The
references in the letter are to an article on Property entitled " What should be
done?"]
To the Editor of the " Socialist "
10th Oct., 1877.
SIR, — Some Sheffield friend has sent me your fourth number, in the
general teaching of which I am thankful to be able to concur without
qualification : but let me earnestly beg of you not to confuse the discus-
sion of the principles of Property in Earth, Air, or Water, with the dis-
cussion of principles of Property in general. The things which, being our
neighbour's, the Mosaic Law commands us not to covet, are by the most
solemn Natural Laws, indeed our neighbour's " property," and any attempts
to communize these have always ended, and will always end, in ruin and
shame.
Do not attempt to learn from America. An Englishman has brains
enough to discover for himself what is good for England ; and should learn,
when he is to be taught anything, from his Fathers, not from his children.
I observe in the first column of your 15th page the assertion by your
correspondent of his definition of money as if different from mine. He
only weakens my definition with a " certificate of credit " instead of a
"promise to pay." What is the use of giving a man "credit" — if you
don't engage to pay him ?
But I observe that nearly all my readers stop at this more or less
metaphysical definition, which I give in Unto this Last,1 instead of going
on to the practical statement of immediate need made in Munera Pulveris.
The promise to find Labour is one which meets general demand ; but
the promise to find Bread is the answer needed to immediate demands,
and the only sound bases of National Currency are shown both in Munera
Pulveris, and Fors Clavigera," to be bread, fuel, and clothing material, of
certified quality.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [See Unto this Last, § 34 n. "The final and best definition of money is
that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation, to give or
find a certain quantity of labour on demand " (Vol. XVII. p. 50). For the refer-
ence to Munera Pulveris, see ibid., pp. 194 seq.]
2 [See Vol. XVII. p. 200 (comparing p. 489), and Fors, Letter 58 (Vol. XXVIII.
p. 429).]
534
LIFE IN GLASGOW
[Communicated to the Glasgow Herald, January 25, 1900, by Mr. William
Gibson, who notes that "it was in answer to a very innocent request for some
information I desired." At a date later than that of the present letter, Ruskin,
on being asked to lend pictures to Glasgow, replied that
" he would only be willing to lend his pictures when Glasgow was in a
fit condition to enjoy, and that would not be till it had pulled down
every one of its hideous houses"
(Glasgow Weekly Herald, January 14, 1882).]
CORPUS CHBISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, Dec. 1877.;
SIR, — Don't waste your money on buying my books, or anybody else's.
To love the beautiful in painting you must first love it in nature,1 then be
long among noble art. You have little nature left at Glasgow within 30
miles, and no art within 300. Don't be ridiculous and affected whatever
you are. If you live at Glasgow you may be happy in Glasgow ways, and
in those only. All the books on earth or in heaven can't teach you to
love the beautiful (from the Apocalypse down).
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
Desperately tired to-day. If you like to have tenpennyworth of me,
and see how you like me, put 10 stamps in enclosed envelope, and tell
Mr. Allen to send you the Fors for December.2
A PAGAN MESSAGE
[From New Year's Address, etc. (as above, pp. 508, 512), 1878. Reprinted in
Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 211, where the first of the lines from Horace was
misprinted ". . . et inter iras."~\
HERNE HILL, LONDON, S.E., 19 Dec., 1877.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am sure you know as well as I that the best message
for any of your young men who really are trying to read their Bibles is
whatever they first chance to read on whatever morning.
But here's a Pagan message for them, which will be a grandly har-
monized bass for whatever words they get on the New Year.
Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.3
(" Amid hope and sorrow, amid fear and wrath, believe every day that has dawned
on thee to be thy last.")
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [Compare Eagle's Nest, § 41 (Vol. XXII. p. 153).]
* [Letter 84 (Vol. XXIX. p. 286).]
8 [Horace, Epistles, i. 4, 12. See Ruskin's notes on this passage, below, p. 694.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 535
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE
[This and the next letter were written in answer to Dr. Furnivall, who, upon
being questioned what appearance in the clouds was intended by the word "fret"
in the following passage, referred the point to Ruskin, whose answers were subse-
quently read at the forty-fifth meeting of the Society, on October 11, 1878. The
letters were printed in the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society for 1878-1879,
pp. 409-412. A few pulls of the four pages were made separately, for private
circulation. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. ii. pp. 257-261.]
"And yon grey lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day."
JULIUS CJSSAR, II. i. 103-4.
(1)
BllANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE [1878].
My DEAR FURNIVALL, — Of course, in any great writer's word, the ques-
tion is far less what the word came from, than where it has come to.
Fret means all manner of things in that place ; primarily, the rippling of
clouds — as sea by wind ; secondarily, the breaking it asunder for light to
come through. It implies a certain degree of vexation — some dissolution
— much order, and extreme beauty. I have myself used this word substan-
tively, to express the rippled edge of a wing-feather.1 In architecture and
jewellery it means simply roughening in a decorative manner.*
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
EDINBURGH, 2Qth Sept., 1878.
DEAR FURNIVALL, — Your kind letter comes to me here, and I must answer
on this paper, for if that bit of note is really of any use to you, you must
please add this word or two more, in printing, as it wouldn't do to let it
be such a mere fret on the vault of its subject. You say not one man in
150 knows what the line means: my dear Furnivall, not one man in 15,000,
in the nineteenth century, knows, or ever can know, what any line — or any
word means, used by a great writer. For most words stand for things that are
seen, or things that are thought of; and in the nineteenth century there is
certainly not one man in 15,000 who ever looks at anything, and not one
in 15,000,000 capable of a thought. Take the intelligence of this word in
this line for example — the root of the whole matter is, first, that the
reader should have seen, what he has often heard of, but probably not
seen twice in his life2 — "Daybreak." Next, it is needful he should think,
* In modern English "chasing" has got confused with it, but it should be
separated again.
1 [See Laws of Fesole, ch. vi. § 14 (Vol. XV. p. 402).]
2 [Compare The Storm-Cloud, § 6 (above, p. 14) ; and see Vol. XV. p. 362,
Vol. XXI. p. 106, Vol. XXII. p. 21.]
536 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
what " break " means in that word — what is broken, namely, and by what.
That is to say, the cloud of night is Broken up, as a city is broken up
(Jerusalem, when Zedekiah fled1), as a school breaks up, as a constitution,
or a ship, is broken up ; in every case with a not inconsiderable change of
idea, and addition to the central word. This breaking up is done by the
Day, which breaks — out, as a man breaks, or bursts out, from his restraint
in a passion ; breaks down in tears ; or breaks in, as from heaven to earth
— with a breach in the cloud wall of it ; or breaks out, with a sense of
outward — as the sun — out and out, farther and farther, after rain. Well ;
next, the thing that the day breaks up is partly a garment, rent, more
than broken ; a mantle, the day itself " in russet mantle clad " 2 — the
blanket of the dark, torn to be peeped through — whereon instantly you
get into a whole host of new ideas ; fretting as a moth Jrets a garment ; 3
unravelling at the edge, afterwards ; — thence you get into fringe, which is
an entirely double word, meaning partly, a thing that guards, and partly a
thing that is worn away on the ground ; the French Frange has, I believe,
a reminiscence of ^pao-crw in it — our " fringe " runs partly toward frico
and friction — both are essentially connected with frango, and the fringe of
" breakers " at the shores of all seas, and the breaking of the ripples and
foam all over them — but this is wholly different in a northern mind, which
has only seen the sea
" Break, break, break, on its cold gray stones," — *
and a southern, which has seen a hot sea on hot sand break into lightning
of phosphor flame — half a mile of fire in an instant — following in time,
like the flash of minute guns. Then come the great new ideas of order
and time, and
" I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bowed her hand," etc.5
and so the timely succession of either ball, flower, or dentil, in archi-
tecture : but this, again, going off to a totally different and still lovely
idea, the main one in the word aurifrigium — which rooted once in aurifex,
went on in Etruscan work,6 followed in Florence, into a much closer con-
nection with frigidus — their style being always in frosted gold — (see the
dew on a cabbage-leaf — or better, on a grey lichen, in early sunshine) —
going back, nobody knows how far, but to the Temple of the Dew of
Athens,7 and gold of Mycenae, anyhow ; and in Etruria to the Deluge, I
suppose. Well, then, the notion of the music of morning comes in — with
strings of lyre (or frets of Katharine's instrument, whatever it was) and
1 2 Kings xxv. 4.]
'• 'Hamlet, Act i. sc.fl, line 166.]
' 'Psalms xxxix. 12 (Prayer-book version).]
4 [For other references to Tennyson on the sea, see Harbours of England,
Vol. XIII. p. 16.]
5 [Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. sc. 1, line 150, "her" being Katharina.]
« [Compare Vol. XXIII. p. 472.]
7 [For otber references to the Pandroseiou, see Vol. XVIII. pp. xxxiv., 317,
and Vol. XIX. p. 334.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 537
stops of various quills; which gets us into another group beginning with
plectrum, going aside again into plico and plight, and Milton's
" Play in the plighted clouds " 1
— (the quills on the fretful porcupine 2 are all thought of, first, in their
piped complexity like rushes, before the standing up in ill temper) — and
so on into the plight of folded drapery, — and round again to our blanket.3
I think that's enough to sketch out the compass of the word. Of course
the real power of it in any place depends on the writer's grasp of it, and
use of the facet he wants to cut with.
SHEPHERD'S BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN
[These two letters to Mr. R. H. Shepherd were given in the List of "Mr.
Shepherd's Publications," printed at the end of his The Bibliography of Dickens,
1880. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. ii. p. 276. The letters were
offered for sale, and an extract from the first was printed, in a catalogue issued by
Dodd, Mead & Co., 755 Broadway, New York. Mr. Shepherd's Bibliography of
Raskin (first published in September 1878, fifth edition 1881) was the first of the
kind, and led to the collection of Ruskin's Letters in Arrows of the Chace (see
above, p. xxxviii.) and of his Miscellanies in On the Old Road.]
(1)
BBANTWOOD, Sept. 30, 1878.
DEAR SIR, — So far from being distasteful to me, your perfect reckoning
up of me not only flatters my vanity extremely, but will be in the highest
degree useful to myself. But you know so much more about me than I
now remember about anything, that I can't find a single thing to correct
or add — glancing through at least.
I will not say that you have wasted your time ; but I may at least
regret the quantity of trouble the book must have given you, and am,
therefore, somewhat ashamedly, but very gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
BRANTWOOD, Oct. 23, 1878.
DEAR MR. SHEPHERD, — I am very deeply grateful to you, as I am in
all duty bound, for this very curious record of myself. It will be of
extreme value to me in filling up what gaps I can in this patched cover-
lid of my life before it is draped over my coffin — if it may be.
I am especially glad to have note of the letters to newspapers, but
most chiefly to have the good news of so earnest and patient a friend.
Ever gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Comus, 298. For another note on the line, see Modern Painters, vol. v.
(Vol. VII. p. 148).]
2 [Hamlet, Act i. sc. 4]
3 [Any etymological connexion between quill and quilt must, however, be con-
sidered doubtful : see The New English Dictionary.]
538
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM"
[From p. 230 of the second edition (1906) of W. G. Rawliuson's Turners
"Liber Studiorum" a Description and a Catalogue. The letter was written to the
author upon the first publication (1878) of the book.]
BRANTWOOD, 14/A Nov., '78.
MY DEAR SIR, — . . . There is only one part of it [the Catalogue] that
needs some addition. You are very accurately right in your conjectures
about Turner's and engravers' etchings — but you don't enough give the
real grounds of judgment. . . .
A Turner etching is only to be known from an engraver's, as his pen
work would be known from an engraver's — that is to say, by his own
mighty touch and ease of hand, having nothing whatever to do with
biting.
That touch is entirely different
from this
much more from this,
etc., which is engravers' work.
So, if Turner does a bit of pine like that
the engraver does it like this
etc., etc.
You seem to know his hand as well as I do ; — but you don't say
how. . . .
Ever most gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
[Elsewhere, in the same book (p. 158), Mr. Rawlinson gives a further portion
of the same letter, and another note. These further remarks refer to the JEsacus
and Hesperie (given by photogravure in Vol. XXII. p. 66). "Mr. Ruskiu in 1878
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 539
exhibited at the Fine Art Society, along with his Turner drawings, a small vignette
engraving of the same subject which he had discovered in an old translation of
Ovid; he wrote of it, "It is unquestionably the first motive of Turner's ^Esacus
and Hesperie, even to the angular disposition of the tree trunks."]
May I also ask you in any new edition to direct attention to the quantity
and fineness of the mezzotint work of Turner's own hand in Plates 66 and
78 [JEsacus and Via Mala]. You most rightly note his pervading touch in
the Wye and Severn, the Inveraray Pier, and the Calais, but you have not
said enough of the drawing of form in white on the two laboured plates.
THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE
[This letter was written to the secretary pro tern, of the Ruskiu Society of
Manchester, in reply to a request for Ruskin's views upon the formation of such
a Society. For another letter to Mr. F. W. Pulleu, the first secretary of the
Society, see Vol. XXIV. p. 423. The present letter was printed in the First
Annual Report of the Raskin Society (of the Rose), Manchester, 1880 ; and reprinted
in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 277- " On the invitation of the Committee during
the summer months (1881), several designs for a heraldic sign for the Society were
drawn up by members and friends, and with Mr. Ruskin's consent were sent to
him early in the autumn. From these he selected one for the general use of the
Society, the work of Mr. A. H. Mackmurdo, and another by Mr. George Reid,
R.S.A., "for general seal or other stately use." With reference to the latter, Mr.
Ruskin said, "It is really as well painted as well can be ... only it should have
our real root of mottoes, ' The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine.' "
(The Ruskin Society (Society of the Rose}, Third Annual Report, Manchester, 1882,
p. 3.) For this motto (from Leviticus xxv. 23), see Vol. XXXI. p. xlii.]
[1879.]
No, indeed, I don't want to discourage the plan you have so kindly
and earnestly formed, but I could not easily or decorously promote it
myself, could I ? But I fully proposed to write you a letter to be read at
the first meeting, guarding you especially against an " ism," l or a possibility
of giving occasion for one ; and I am exceedingly glad to receive your
present letter. Mine was not written, because it gave me trouble to think
of it, and I can't take trouble now. But without thinking, I can at once
assure you that the taking of the name of St. George would give me
endless trouble, and cause all manner of mistakes, and perhaps even legal
difficulties. We must not have that, please.
But I think you might with grace and truth take the name of the
Society of the Rose 2 — meaning the English wild rose — and that the object
of the society would be to promote such English learning and life as can
abide where it grows. You see it is the heraldic sign on my books, so
that you might still keep pretty close to me.
Supposing this were thought too far-fetched or sentimental by the
1 [Compare St. Murk's Rest, § 209: "no true disciple of mine will ever be a
Ruskinian'' (Vol. XXIV. p. 371).]
8 [For the device of the Rose on many of Ruskin's books, see Fors Clavigera,
Letter 22 (Vol. XXVII. p. 371).]
540 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
promoters of the society, I think the " More " Society would be a good
name, following out the teaching of the Utopia as it is taken up in Fors.1
I can't write more to-day, but I dare say something else may come into
my head, and I'll write again, or you can send me more names for choice.
THE READING OF NONSENSE
[Printed in the Strand Magazine, December 1895, p. 678 : <{ part of a letter
to a clerical correspondent."]
May 3, 1879.
My DEAR SIR, — I am obliged by your reply — and trust that you will
some day know enough of me to recognize the difference between plain-
ness and discourtesy. You choose to waste your life in reading literature
intentionally corrupt — as a natural consequence, you make inquiries of per-
sons unable to answer you, but who are disturbed by your questions, go
away saddened, instead of strengthened, by your society, and cause instantly
great trouble and waste of time to other people. You think it discourteous
in the man whose time you have wasted, to advise you to read no more
nonsense. But you have, I believe, sense enough to discover, some day,
that the advice was sound — and your impression unsound.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT
[From the Y.M.A. Magazine, conducted by the Young Men's Association,
Clapham Congregational Church, September 1879, vol. iii., No. 12, p. 242. Re-
printed in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 205. The letter was sent by Ruskin to
the Secretary of the Protestant Blind Pension Society in answer to an application
for subscriptions which Ruskin had mislaid, and thus left unanswered.]
BRANTWOOD, 18th July, 1879.
MY DEAR SIR, — The reason I never answered was — I now find — the
difficulty of explaining my fixed principle never to join in any invalid
charities.2 All the foolish world is ready to help in them ; and will spend
large incomes in trying to make idiots think, and the blind read, but will
leave the noblest intellects to go to the Devil, and the brightest eyes to
remain spiritually blind for ever ! All my work is to help those who have
eyes and see not. Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THOS. POCOCK, ESQ.
I must add that, to my mind, the prefix of " Protestant " to your
society's name indicates far stonier blindness than any it will relieve.3
1 [See Letters 7, 37, 38 (Vol. XXVII. p. 117 ; Vol. XXVIH. pp. 23, 47).]
a [On this subject, compare Vol. XVI. pp. 168-169 ; Vol. XVII. p. 542 ;
Vol. XXVII. p. 148 ; Vol. XXIX. p. 214 ; and above, p. 240 (Letter 42).]
3 [Compare what Ruskin says of " pig-headed " Protestantism, Vol. XXIX.
p. 105.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 541
THE "EAGLE'S NEST"
[From the Y.M.A. Magazine, October 1879, vol. iv., No. 1, p. 12. Reprinted
iu Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 206.]
To the Editor of the " Y.M.A. Magazine"
BRANTWOOD, August VJth, 1879.
MY DEAR SIR, — There is a mass of letters on my table this morning,
and I am not quite sure if the Y.M.A. Magazine, among them, is the
magazine which yours of the 1 5th speaks of as " enclosed " ; but you are
entirely welcome to print my letter about Blind Asylums anywhere, and
if in the Y.M.A. I should be glad to convey to its editor, at the same
time, my thanks for the article on " Growing Old," l which has not a
little comforted me this morning — and my modest recommendation that,
by way of antidote to the No. III. paper on the Sun, he should reproduce
the 104th, 115th, and 116th paragraphs of my Eagle's Nest, closing them
with this following sentence from the 12th Book of the Laws of Plato,
dictating the due time for the sittings of a Parliament seeking righteous
policy (and composed, they may note farther, for such search, of Young
Men and Old):—
fv TI fie pas <rv\\cy6/j.fvos e£ dvayKrjs cbr' opOpov fifXP1 7rfP & fa-i
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
POLITICS IN YOUTH
[From the Y.M.A. Magazine, November 1879, vol. iv., No. 2, p. 36. Re-
printed in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 207.]
To the Editor of the " Y.M.A. Magazine"
SHEFFIELD, October 19th, 1879.
My DEAR SIR, — I am heartily obliged by your publication of those pieces
of Eagle's Nest, and generally interested in your Magazine, papers on
politics excepted. Young men have no business with politics at all ; and
1 [The article on "Growing Old" (Y.M.A., August 1879) was "a study from
the poets " ou happiness in old age ; that upon the sun, contained in the same
number of the magazine, dealt with the spots on the sun, and the various scien-
tific opinions about them ; the paragraphs reprinted from the Eagle's Nest are upon
the sun as the Light, and Health, and Guide of Life : see Vol. XXII. pp. 198,
203, 204.]
2 [Laws, xii. 951 D. "Let him go to the assembly of those who review the
laws. This shall be a mixed body of young and old men, who shall be required to
meet daily between the hour of dawn and the rising of the sun." On Parliamentary
hours, compare Vol. XXII. p. 198.]
542 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
when the time is come for them to have opinions, they will find all
political parties resolve themselves at last into two — that which holds with
Solomon, that a rod is for the fool's back,1 and that which holds with
the fool himself, that a crown is for his head, a vote for his mouth, and
all the universe for his belly.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
The song on " Life's Mid-day " is very beautiful, except the third
stanza. The river of God will one day sweep down the great city, not
feed it.2
ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES
[This letter was written in reply to one requesting Raskin's views on the
best means of forming a public Gallery at Leicester. It appeared in the Leicester
Chronicle and Mercury, January 31, and the Times, February 2, 1880. Reprinted
in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. p. 82. For another reference to the letter, see On
the Old Road, above, p. 258.]
[January 1880.]
DEAR SIR, — Your letter is deeply interesting to me, but what use is
there in xny telling you what to do ? The mob won't let you do it. It
is fatally true that no one nowadays can appreciate pictures by the Old
Masters ! and that every one can understand Frith's " Derby Day " 3 — that
is to say, everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, mountebanks, and
men about town ; but nobody in saints, heroes, kings, or wise men — either
from the east or west. What can you do ? If your Committee is strong
enough to carry such a resolution as the appointment of any singly respon-
sible person, any well-informed gentleman of taste in your neighbourhood,
to buy for the Leicester public just what he would buy for himself — that
is to say, himself and his family, — children being the really most important
of the untaught public, — and to answer simply to all accusation — "That is
a good and worthy piece of art — (past or present, no matter which), — make
the most and best you can of it": — that method, so long as tenable, will
be useful. I know of no other.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Proverbs xxvi. 3, and x. 13.]
• [The following are the lines specially alluded to : —
" Shall the strong full-flowing river, bearing on its mighty breast
Half the wealth of some proud nation, precious spoils of East and West,
Shall it mourn its mountain cradle and its infant heathery bed,
All its youthful songs and dances, as adown the hills it sped,
When by it in you great city half a million mouths are fed ? "
(Y.M.A. Magazine, October 1879.)]
3 [For a notice of this picture, see Vol. XIV. p. 161.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 543
THE PERFECTION OF PRINTING
[From the Printers International Specimen Exchange Annual, vol. i. (1880).
This extract from a letter of Ruskin to the editor, Mr. A. Tuer, to whom the
letter on Stippling (p. 577) was written, will be found at page 5 of the intro-
duction. The extract was reprinted in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. i. p. 66, and
thence in RusJciniana, part i., 1890, p. 94 (No. 102).]
[1880.]
I assure you again how gladly I hear of an association of printers who
will sometimes issue work in a form worthy of their own craft, and show-
ing to the uttermost the best of which it is capable. It seems to me that
a lovely field of design is open in the treatment of decorative type — not in
the mere big initials, in which one cannot find the letters, but in delicate
and variably fantastic ornamentation of capitals, and filling of blank spaces
or musically-divided periods of sentences and breadths of margin. Paper
that won't break or won't mildew would be literally a " godsend " to me.
I scarcely care to design an engraving to go on modern paper. I have the
most entire sympathy with your objects, but believe that people will have
bad paper nowadays, bad printing nowadays, and bad painting nowadays,
and nothing else.
TRUE NEWS OF GOOD
[From Messrs. Sotheby's Catalogue of Autograph Letters sold by them 21st May
1890 (No. 99). Also in Messrs. New-come's Catalogue, 1890, No. 289. Reprinted
in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. p. 66, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890,
p. 94 (No. 103).]
[AMIENS, October 26, 1880.]
MY DEAR SIR, — Nothing can be begun well on borrowed money. And
/ am the last person to promote any manner of Journalism. But if any
one of you will buy a hand press, and the rest of you will cut out the
true news of any good thing done anywhere, out of other newspapers, and
set up type and pull them with your own arms on good paper, and pay a
newsboy to call — if it be but fifty copies, once a month — " True news of
Good," and you can sell your fifty copies for a penny each, and put the
odd 2d. of the 4 and 2d. aside for future capital, you may get on and be
of use. Or if you will hold your tongue and work till you have some
money, and then set workmen to print as aforesaid. But don't borrow,
nor hope for gain, or you are lost like the rest.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S. — I never got any of your letters till to-day, 26th Oct., at
Amiens.
544 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
THE CERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION
[From Messrs. Newcome's Catalogue of Autograph Letters, 1890 (No. 292).
Reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 100, and thence in Ruskiniana,
part i., 1890, pp. 111-112 (No. 124). The "Irish misery" was the agricultural
distress which led to the formation of the Irish Land League : see a similar letter
from Ruskin printed in Fors Clavigera, Letter 89 (Vol. XXIX. p. 403).]
[8th January, 1880.]
. . . But don't you know then that I am entirely with you in this
Irish misery, and have been this thirty years ? — only one can't speak
plain without distinctly becoming a leader of Revolution ! I know that
Revolution must come in all the world — but I can't act with Danton or
Robespierre, nor with the modern French Republican or Italian one. I could
with you and your Irish, but you are only at the beginning of the end.
I have spoken — and plainly too — for all who have ears, and hear ; but
all landlords have adder's ears l as well as teeth. . . .
WHISTLER v. RUSKIN
[From the Glasgow Herald, January 27, 1900, communicated by " J. A.," who
explained that "the painting by Whistler which was the cause of the famous law
plea was sold in Glasgow by auction after extensive advertising, in which Mr.
Ruskin's name was freely used. The picture caused but languid interest in your
city, and at the sale only fetched a few pounds. I forget the exact sum, but
thinking Mr. Ruskin would be interested in the matter, I sent him one of the
catalogues and other details." For particulars of the libel case referred to, see
Vol. XXIX. pp. xxiii.-xxv.]
BRANTWOOD, January 24, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am sincerely obliged by your letter, and much more
pleased by its contents than perhaps some of my friends would think it
virtuous to be. I do not say "dignified," because the principal annoyance
in the whole matter to me was the way my best friends wrote as if Mr. W.
was really something of a dangerous match and antagonist — and their ex-
pecting me to answer or debate with him — so that I need not expect
my friends to sympathise with any dignities of mine ; but they might
expect me to express virtuous forgiveness and the like, of which there is
no shadow (or light) whatsoever in my mind, but entire satisfaction in all
that you tell me in all its bearings, and I am especially glad it was done
by Glaswegians, who are helping me now in many ways ; 2 they must for-
give a nasty little bit I've had to put in about Glasgow in a letter I've been
forced to write for next Contemporary? I'll beg their pardon in next Fors.*
I am, my dear Sir, yours faithfully and obliged,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [See Psalms Iviii. 4.]
a V
[A reference to the work of the " Ruskin Society of Glasgow " : see Vol.
XXXIII. p. xxvii. n.~\
3 [The "Rejoinder" to the Bishop of Manchester: see § 5 (above, p. 407).]
4 [Letter 88 (March 1880), dated "February 8" (Vol. XXIX. p. 381); but it
contains no reference to Glasgow.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 545
IRVING'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE"
[From the Theatre, March 1880, p. 169. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace,
vol. ii. pp. 262-263. The circumstances connected with the present letter, or
rather extract fi'om one, are as follow : After witnessing the performance of the
Merchant of Venice at the Lyceum Theatre, Ruskin had some conversation with
Irving on the subject. In the Theatre of January 1880 — p. 63 — appeared a para-
graph which stated that at the interview Ruskin had declared Irving's "Shylock"
to be "noble, tender, and true," and it is to that statement that the present letter,
which appeared in the March number of the Theatre, relates. It was added that
for a fuller, statement of his views of the Merchant of Venice, Mr. Ruskin referred
to Munera Pulveris, § 100 (Vol. XVII. p. 223) : see also in this volume, above,
p. 423. With reference to the letter privately addressed to Irving, the Theatre of
April (p. 249) had a note to the effect that Irving had, "for excellent and com-
mendable reasons," preferred it not being made public.]
6th Feb., 1880.
I have no doubt that whatever Mr. Irving has stated that I said, I
did say. But in personal address to an artist, to whom one is introduced
for the first time, one does not usually say all that may be in one's mind.
And if expressions limited, if not even somewhat exaggerated, by cour-
tesy, be afterwards quoted as a total and carefully-expressed criticism, the
general reader will be — or may be easily — much misled. I did and do much
admire Mr. Irving's own acting of Shylock. But I entirely dissent (and
indignantly as well as entirely) from his general reading and treatment of
the play. And I think that a modern audience will invariably be not only
wrong, but diametrically and with polar accuracy opposite to, the real view
of any great author in the moulding of his work.
So far as I could in kindness venture, I expressed my feelings to that
effect, in a letter which I wrote to Mr. Irving on the day after I saw
the play ; and I should be sincerely obliged to him, under the existing
circumstances, if he would publish THE WHOLE of that letter.1
RECITATIONS
[This letter was addressed to Mr. R. T. Webling, by whom it was afterwards
printed as a testimonial of the interest and success of his daughters' recitations.
It was printed in the Daily News (February 18, 1880), and reprinted in Arrows of
the Chace, vol. ii. p. 264.]
SHEFFIELD, 16th February, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am most happy to assure you, in reply to your in-
teresting letter of the 12th, that I heard your daughters' recitations in
London last autumn, with quite unmixed pleasure and the sincerest ad-
miration— not merely that, but with grave change in my opinions of the
general value of recitations as a means of popular instruction. Usually,
I like better to hear beautiful poetry read quietly than recited with action.
1 [On Ruskin's insistence that his letters, if published, should be given completely,
see above, pp. 195-196, and below, p. 620.]
546 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
But I felt, in hearing Shelley's "Cloud" recited (I think it was by Miss
Josephine) that I also was "one of the people," and understood the poem
better than ever before, though I am by way of knowing something about
clouds, too. I also know the " Jackdaw of Rheims " pretty nearly by
heart ; l but I would gladly come to London straightway, had I the time,
to hear Miss Peggy speak it again. And — in fine — I have not seen any
public entertainment — for many a long year — at once, so sweet, so inno-
cent, and so helpful, as that which your children can give to all the gentle
and simple in mind and heart.
Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully, and with all felicitation yours,
J. RUSKIN.
KUSKIN'S TEACHING
[From the Oxford University Herald, June 12, 1880. Reprinted in Igdrasil,
August 1890, vol. i. pp. 300-301, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 54-55
(No. 52).]
To the Editor of the " Oxford University Herald "
BBANTWOOD, June 7th, 1880.
SIR, — I am sincerely grateful for your kindly written notice of me in
your issue of the 5th inst. ; but will you permit me to correct its closing
statement, a very important one, written indeed not without apparent
grounds, yet I think more with a view to liveliness of finish for your article
than to its essential justice.2
Of all men who have ventured to take a teacher's office in these
modern days, I am precisely the one who has taught least of his own.3
Had I announced myself as a discoverer or doctor of new things, I should
instantly have had a following, and been amicably received by my fellow-
sectarians as taking my fair part in their round game. It is precisely
1 [For another reference to Barham and his Ingoldsby Legends, see above, p. 103.]
2 [The article related to the proposal made in Oxford at the end of May 1880
to place a bust of Ruskin in the University Drawing Schools which he had insti-
tuted and endowed. The circular issued inviting subscriptions was dated May 27,
and was signed by Prince Leopold, Lord Salisbury, Sir Henry Acland, Burne-Jones,
Leighton, George Richmond, Henry Smith, and most of the Heads of Houses. The
bust now stands in the Drawing School, and has been reproduced in Vol. XXI.
(Plate LXX. p. 308). The words of the article referred to in the letter were these :
"He has suffered from his own powers, as all men, being human, must suffer. . . .
He is unable to endure authority on any subject, or even to accept testimony.
His life has been spoiled by his own continual attempts to substitute a Christianity
of his own for the Church of England ; he has his own political economy ; he has
systematised an excellent botany of his own, a mineralogy of his own, a geology
of his own ; he has driven himself frantic by conducting a magazine of his own,"
etc. The actually closing words of the somewhat inconsistent article, however,
were in another strain, and paid the full tribute " to the kindest heart and keenest
benevolence in England ; to the poet, painter, and interpreter of the Word of God
in Nature, who is best worthy to succeed Wordsworth and Turner."]
3 [Compare Vol. XXII. p. 605 ; and below, p. 589.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 547
because I utter nothing of my own, and therefore virtually hint to them
that they had better utter nothing of theirs, that they unite in ignoring
or abusing me. The theology I teach is not mine, but St. Bernard's and
St. Francis's ; the philosophy I teach is Plato's and Bacon's ; the art, Phidias'
and John Bellini's ; the economy, Xenophon's ; the geology, Saussure's ; and
I quitted the University, not at all because my health had failed, but
because I saw that I could be of no more real use there practically : I
was looked upon as a lively musical-box instead of a man who knew his
science and his business; and where the traditions in which I had been
trained to my Mastership were set at nought by the younger schoolmen,
who read Spencer instead of Plato, Smith instead of Solomon, and were so
ashamed of the Church they were champions of, that they dared not ask
their pupils to say its prayers.1
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY
[These letters first appeared in the Glasgow Herald; the first four on October
7, the fifth on October 12, 1880. They were reprinted in Arrows of the Chace,
voL ii. pp. 282-284. The first was written to the President of the Conservative
Club upon his requesting Ruskin to stand for the Lord Rectorship ; the second in
answer to a hope that Ruskin would reconsider the decision he had expressed in
his reply ; and the third upon the receipt of a letter explaining what the duties
of the office were. The fourth letter refers to one which dealt with some reflec-
tions made by the Liberal Club upon the former conduct of their opponents. For
the result of the election, see Vol. XXXIII. p. xxvii. nJ\
(1)
BRANTWOOD, 10th June, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am greatly flattered by your letter, but there are two
reasons why I can't stand — the first, that though I believe myself the
staunchest Conservative in the British Islands,2 I hold some opinions, and
must soon clearly utter them,3 concerning both lands and rents, which I
fear the Conservative Club would be very far from sanctioning, and think
Mr. Bright himself had been their safer choice. The second, that I am
not in the least disposed myself to stand in any contest where it is possible
that Mr. Bright might beat me.
Are there really no Scottish gentlemen of birth and learning from whom
you could choose a Rector worthier than Mr. Bright ? and better able than
any Southron to rectify what might be oblique, or hold straight what
wasn't yet so, in a Scottish University?
1 [See above, p. 218.]
2 [Compare the Preface to The Bible of Amiens, Vol. XXXIII. p. 21.]
3 [Ruskin was probably thinking of his next Letter (89) in Fors Clavigera,
addressed to the Trade Unions (Vol. XXIX. p. 398).]
XXXIV. 2 M
548 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Might I ask the favour of the transmission of a copy of this letter to
the Independent Club? It will save me the difficulty of repetition in other
terms. — And believe me, my dear sir, always the club's and your faithful
servant,
J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. PHASER, Esq.
(2)
June, 1880.
Mv DEAR SIR, — I am too tired at this moment (I mean this day or two
back) to be able to think. My health may break down any day, and I
cannot bear a sense of having to do anything. If you would take me on
condition of my residence for a little while with you, and giving a little
address to the students after I had seen something of them, I think I
•could come, but I won't stand ceremonies nor make long speeches, and
you really should try to get somebody else.
Ever respectfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. FRASER, Esq.
(3)
2±th June, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am grieved at my own vacillation, and fear it is more
vanity than sense of duty in which I leave this matter of nomination to
your own pleasure. But I had rather err in vanity than in heartlessness,
and so will do my best for you if you want me.
Ever respectfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
ROUEN, 28£A September, 1880.
SIR, — I am obliged by your letter, but can absolutely pay no regard to
anything said or done by Mr. Bright's Committee beyond requesting my
own committees to print for their inspection — or their use — in any way
they like, every word of every letter I have written to my supporters, or
non-supporters, or any other person in Glasgow, so far as such letters may
be recoverable.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. FRASER, Esq.
(5)
BRANTWOOD.
MY DEAR SIR, — What in the devil's name have you to do with either
Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone ? You are students at the University, and
have no more business with politics than you have with rat-catching.1
Had you ever read ten words of mine [with understanding] you would
1 [Compare the letter on " Politics in Youth " ; above, p. 541.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 549
have known that I care no more [either] for Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone
than for two old bagpipes with the drones going by steam, but that I
hate all Liberalism as I do Beelzebub, and that, with Carlyle, I stand, we
two alone now in England, for God and the Queen.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
ALEX. MITCHELL, Esq., Avoch, by Inverness.
P.S. — You had better, however, ask the Conservatives for a copy of my
entire letters to them.1
DRAMATIC REFORM
[From the Journal of Dramatic Reform, November 1880. Reprinted in Arrows
of the Chace, vol. ii. pp. 279-281. The two letters were addressed to Mr. John
Stuart Bogg, the Secretary of the Dramatic Reform Association of Manchester.
The first was a reply to a request that Ruskin would, in accordance with an old
promise, write something on the subject of the Drama for the Society's journal ;
and the second was added by its author on hearing that it was the wish of the
Society to publish the first. In the second letter, " Garin" is here a correction
for "Gerin."]
(1)
BBANTWOOD, July 30th, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — Yes, I began writing something — a year ago, is it ? —
on your subject, but have lost it, and am now utterly too busy to touch
so difficult and so important a subject. I shall come on it, some day,
necessarily.2
Meantime, the one thing I have to say mainly is that the idea of
making money by a theatre, and making it educational at the same time,3
is utterly to be got out of people's heads. You don't make money out of
a Ship of the Line, nor should you out of a Church, nor should you out
of a College, nor should you out of a Theatre.
Pay your Ship's officers, your Church officers, your College tutors, and
1 [Upon the terms of this letter, which was written in answer to a question
whether Ruskin sympathised with Lord Beaconsfield or with Mr. Gladstone, the
reader is referred to the Epilogue to the original edition of Arrows of the Chace:
see now above, p. 473 ; see also in Vol. XXXVII. a letter to Mr. Gladstone's
daughter, of October 23, 1880. The bracketed words were omitted in the Glasgow
Herald. Collectors of Ruskiniana have a difficult task before them if they seek to
possess all the newspaper articles and fugitive broad-sheets, pictorial, poetical, and
in prose, which were called forth by this contest for the Lord Rectorship and by
Ruskin's letter about D'Israeli and Gladstone. The following references may be
given : Glasgow Herald, October 7, 12, 1880 ; North British Daily Mail, October 8 ;
Illustrated London News, October 16, 1880; Punch, October 23, 1880 (a skit, "The
Complete Letter- writer, by John Ruskin, Esq.") ; Daily Telegraph, October 16
(leading article) ; North British Daily Mail, November 1G.]
2 [The time, however, did not come.]
3 fi< I - ' ....
have always held the stage quite amongst the best and most necessary
means of education — moral and intellectual" (From The Young Man, May 1888,
p. 60).]
550 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
your Stage tutors, what will honourably maintain them. Let there be no
starring on the Stage boards, more than on the deck, but the Broadside
well delivered.
And let the English Gentleman consider with himself what he has got
to teach the people : perhaps then, he may tell the English Actor what
he has to teach them.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
(2)
AMIENS, October 12th, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am heartily glad you think my letter may be of some
use. I wish it had contained the tenth part of what I wanted to say.
May I ask you at least to add this note to it, to tell how indignant I
was, a few days ago, to see the drop-scene (!) of the Folies at Paris com-
posed of huge advertisements ! The ghastly want of sense of beauty, and
endurance of loathsomeness gaining hourly on the people !
They Avere playing the Fills du Tambour Major l superbly, for the most
part; they gave the introductory convent scene without the least carica-
ture, the Abbess being played by a very beautiful and gracefully-mannered
actress, and the whole thing would have been delightful had the mere
decorations of the theatre been clean and pretty. To think that all the
strength of the world combining in Paris to amuse itself can't have clean
box-curtains ! or a pretty landscape sketch for a drop scene ! — but sits in
squalor and dismalness, with bills stuck all over its rideau !
I saw Le Chalet 2 here last night, in many respects well played and sung,
and it is a quite charming little opera in its story, only it requires an
actress of extreme refinement for the main part, and everybody last night
sang too loud. There is no music of any high quality in it, but the piece
is one which, played with such delicacy as almost any clever, rvellbred girl
could put into the heroine's part (if the audiences would look for acting
more than voice), ought to be extremely delightful to simple persons.
On the other hand, I heard William Tell entirely massacred at the
great opera house at Paris. My belief is they scarcely sang a piece of
pure Rossini all night, but had fitted in modern skimble-skamble tunes, and
quite unspeakably clumsy and common ballet. I scarcely came away in
better humour from the mouthed tediousness of Garin 3 at the Fran9aise,
but they took pains with it, and I suppose it pleased a certain class of
audience. The William Tell could please nobody at heart.
The libretto of Jean de Nivelle 4 is very beautiful, and ought to have
new music written for it. Anything so helplessly tuneless as its present
music I never heard, except mosquitos and cicadas.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [By Offenbach (first produced 1879).]
a [Comic opera (first produced 1834) ; libretto by Scribe and Melesville ; music
by A. Adam.]
* [A comedy by Delair produced at the Comedie-Fran9aise oti July 8, 1880.]
4 [An opera (produced at tbe Opera Comique on March 8, 1880) by Leo
Delibes.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 551
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR"
[Printed in the Strand Magazine, December 1895, p. 678, addressed to Mr.
John T. Bacon. The date of the letter is thore given as "1879," but this must
be wrong, as it contains a reference to Fors of September 1880. For another
letter on The Queen of the Air, see above, p. 504.]
[1880.]
MY DEAR SIR, — Yes, The Queen of the Air was a great delight to
tnyself; but I should never have thought of asking the British workman
to read it, — and I doubt if you are a fair specimen of him. I have told
my publisher, to whom I forward your letter, to send you a copy of the
gratis letter : x and I will think over the experiment and a cheap edition
of the Queen"2- — if you can get a hundred signatures of real workmen, in
Blackburn or elsewhere — asking for it.
Very truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
A "CHESTERFIELD11 LETTER
[This and the following letter, addressed to Mr. B. Douglas, appeared in the
Standard, November 17, 1880. Reprinted in Igdrasil, June 1890, vol. i. pp. 215,
216, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 33-34 (No. 29). Many of the
daily papers of November 12, 1880, contained, together with articles thereon, the
following extraordinary letter, as having been read at the Art School of Chester-
field, and being in answer to a request that Ruskin would come and lecture
there : —
HAHLESDEN, LONDON, Friday.
MY DEAR SIR, — Your letter reaches me here. Have just returned from Venice, where I
have ruminated in the pasturages of the home of art ; the loveliest and holiest of lovely and
holy cities, where the very stones cry out, eloquent in the elegancies of iambics. I could not
if I would go to Chesterfield, and I much doubt whether I would go if I could. I do not
hire myself out — after the fashion of a brainless, long-tongued puppet — for the filthy ducats.
You, and those who told you to write me, want me, I presume, to come that you may make
money for your art class ; and if I should get you much money you will then tolerate some
good advice from me. No, I will not come.
I have heard of Chesterfield. Hath it not a steeple-abomination, and is it not the home —
if not the cradle — of that arch-abomination-creator, Stephenson? To him are we indebted for
the screeching and howling and shrieking fiends, fit only for a Pandemonium, called locomotives,
that disgrace the loveliest spots of God's own land.
I will not come to Chesterfield. Tell your students that art is a holy luxury, and they
must pay for it. Tell them to study, to ponder, and to work with a single thought for per-
fection, observing loving and strict obedience to the monitions of their teachers. Let them
learn to do things rightly and humbly, and then, by the conviction that they can never do
them as well as they have been done by others, they may be profited.
My good young people, this is pre-eminently the foolishest — yes, quite the foolishest — notion
that you can get into your little egg-shells of heads : that you can be a Titian, or a Raphael,
or a Phidias ; or that you can write like Seneca. But because you cannot be great, there is
no reason why you should not aspire to greatness. In joy, humility, and humbleness work
together. Only don't study art because it will pay, and do not ask for payment because you
1 [Letter 89 of Fors, addressed "To the Trades Unions of England," and circu-
lated gratis among them (Vol. XXIX. p. 398).]
2 [No cheap edition was issued, however, until 1887.]
552 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
study art. Art will make you also wiser and happier, and is worth paying for. If you are
in debt — as I suppose you are, or why pester me ? — pay off your debts yourselves If you
write to me only that you may get money, you are on the fpolishest of all errands. Wisdom
is more precious than rubies, and is offered to you as a blessing in herself. She is the reward
of industry, kindness, and modesty. She is the prize of prizes, the strength of your life now,
and an earnest of the life that is to como. This advice is better than money, and I give it
to you gratis. Ponder it and profit by ic.
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
A reference to the Mansfield Art School notes (now reprinted in A Joy for
Ever, Vol. XVI. pp. 155-159) will show the source from which the later part of
the letter was taken. Ruskin at once telegraphed to the papers, " The letter read
by the secretary of the Art School, Chesterfield, as having been received from me,
is a complete forgery " ; while the Globe of November 13 contained a formal letter
authorized and signed by Ruskin in these terms : —
"A SCANDALOUS HOAX. — To the Editor of the Globe. SIR, — The letter
you quote in your last night's issue as having been sent by me to the
secretary of the Art School at Chesterfield is an impudent hoax from
beginning to end, and you will oblige me by letting this be known as
soon as possible. — I am, Sir, your faithful servant, JOHN RUSKIN : Arthur
Severn's, Herne Hill, S.E., November 13."
The Observer, November 14, 1880, also published a telegram from Ruskin thus :
"The letter read by the secretary of the Art School, Chesterfield, as having been
received from me, is a forgery."]
(1)
ARTHUR SEVERN'S, HERNK HILL, LONDON, S.E.,
loth Nov., '80.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am heartily sorry to have been the cause of so much
embarrassment and annoyance to you ; but the fact is, when I have any
work in hand which I care for, I don't read my letters, but as just now,
at Chartres and Amiens, carry them about in bundles in my portmanteau
and look at them as Ulysses at the bags of ^Eolus.1 Hence none of your
letters got any answer from me, and it must have come to the knowledge
of some waggish pupil of the school that they had .not. The rest " va
sans dire." For my own part, I am heartily glad it has happened, the
howl of all the papers being magnificent; but I am sincerely concerned
for your annoyance and the various troubles you have gone through. It
may be well to state, once for all, that I cannot now take part in public
business, and rarely answer letters about it. My life is running short,
and I mean to enjoy it as much as I can.
Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
(2)
HERNE HILL, S.E., 19th Nov., '80.
MY DEAR SIR, — Many thanks for the cutting from Sheffield Telegraph. I
assure you I was quite sorry to disclaim the " Chesterfield letter " : it was
such a tasty dish of mince from things I had to my own notion said in
1 [See queen of the Air, § 19 (Vol. XIX. p. 312).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 553
a useful way enough, so that there was no wonder that it succeeded so
generally. Of course I saw at once how it had been patched up, but there
was no use in telegraphing to you the exact sources of its " shreds and
patches." l If only the good British public would take half the interest
in any half-page of my real writings — some thirty volumes of which now
lie open to them — which they have done in these squibs upon them, I
should be evermore grateful to the composer of the " Famous " (as I am
proud to see it styled) "Chesterfield letter."
In case you should see fit to make any public use of this one, may
it be understood as the announcement of my wish that the whole business
may speedily reach its " Requiescat," and that, at all events, I must hence-
forth severely persist in mine.
Believe me, my dear Sir, ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
COUNSEL TO YOUNG SCOTS
[First printed in Life and Work: a Parish Magazine, November 1887 (Edinburgh,
Publication Offices of the Church of Scotland), vol. ix. p. 173 ; published with other
letters from J. S. Blackie and J. C. Shairp. Addressed, in reply to a request for
advice, to the Rev. W. Forsyth of Abernethy, when organising a Young Men's Mutual
Improvement Society. Reprinted in the British Weekly, November 4, 1887.]
BRANTWOOD, 1st January, 1881.
MY DEAR SIR, — It is at any rate an encouragement to me in the opening
of the New Year to find that a minister of Christ believes I am able to be
useful to youth under his charge. But I have little hope myself of being
heard in anything ; for, on the whole, my messages are depressing to the
worldly ardours of our day, and not glowing enough to kindle the heavenly
ones. But it seems to me that if you could persuade your young H albert
Glendinnings 2 to set themselves first to get a pure and noble conception of
Scottish life as it might be lived in Scotland, and then to found all their
literary and other studies on a faithful desire to embellish their Scottish
homes, and to stay in them, and make their days long in their own land,3
— not rich nor powerful in other people's lands — you would get at a rule
and system of reading, not to say of thought, which in itself would be
extremely delightful, and open into higher walks for all who felt qualified
for them. Perhaps if your little society were at first to acquaint itself
accurately with the mineralogy and flora of the neighbourhood, it would
be found a good beginning for all else. If you were to tell me more
definitely your wishes and difficulties, I might perhaps make a more per-
tinent answer.
Believe me, always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 \Hamlet, Act Hi. sc. 4 ("shreds" has hitherto been misprinted "threads").]
2 [For a reference to this "counsel," drawn from The Monastery and The Abbott
see in a later volume Ruskin's letter to Dr. John Brown, of February 6, 1881.]
8 [Exodus xx. 12.]
554 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
A DRAWING LESSON
[This letter appeared in the Cape Quarterly Review, October 1, 1881 (Cape Town,
J. C. Juta), vol. i. pp. 190-191. It was reprinted in Igdratril, June 1890, vol. i.
pp. 211, 212, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 29-30 (No. 21). The
date of the letter was not given ; it may nave been very much earlier than 1881,
possibly about the time of Elements of Drawing.'}
[1881 ?]
MY DEAR SIR, — I send you, in a folio, a woodcut of Albert Diirer's — a
letter, magnified, of a thirteenth-century MS., and a memorandum of some
ivy-leaves. I will ask you to go to the expense of having a simple deal
frame made, of the size of the sheet on which the illuminated letter is,
•with a common glass, and any invention you like best for taking sheets of
paper in and out, and I will ask you to put the drawings or prints I may
send you into the said frame while you copy them, — as some of them, the
Albert Diirer for instance, I could not replace easily if hurt.
I want you first to copy, with a common pen, the dragons' heads and
the foliage in the foreground out of the Albert Diirer. Trace the heads
jind leaves if you like, to lose no time in merely placing. Then draw
with a common — not steel — pen, and common ink. I want you to do this,
in order to get accustomed to the great master's way of expressing himself
with pure black lines. When you have done the dragon and leaves, I
shall ask you (for you shall know your fate at once) to try and draw
anything that comes in your way, in the same manner, — cocks, hens, all
manner of poultry, — dogs, cats, mice, anything alive ; always trying to get
the life of the beast and its real nature, its doggish or cockish expression ;
not to make a pretty drawing, but a drawing with the essence of the
beast in it.1
In the meantime, while doing the Albert Diirer, you can begin on
natural leaves. Get a sprig, not too much, of any bush, dead or alive.
Fasten it in any position you like before a sheet of white paper, so as to
see it against the paper. Fix your position steadily. Shut one eye, and
outline the leaf with pencil, on another sheet of paper, as you see it with
the single eye, taking care not to change your position. Draw it always
the natural size. Outline it finely with the pen, and fill it up with any
colour that comes handy, merely to get the effect of its masses for future
use. The ivy-sprigs sent will serve you for an example. (It is real size,
a young ivy tendril in early spring.) Take care to foreshorten the leaves
carefully when they appear so to you. Do a study of this kind carefully
every day. You can copy the illuminated letter, first large, as it is, and
then try to reduce it, keeping the details clear and distinct, to as small a
size as you can. In the real MS. the square enclosing this letter is only
this size. [About if inches by 1|.]
Pray do not hesitate to ask me anything you are in doubt about. I
shall be most happy to tell you anything I can.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Compare Eagle's Ne»t, § 150 (Vol. XXII. p. 223).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 555
WOOD-CARVING
[The first letter is from the preface to the following book — Example* of Carved
Oak m the Woodwork and Furniture of Ancient HOUHM, chiefly of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries, by William Bliss Sanders, 1883 — where the author explains
that the letter refers to the original drawings (submitted to Ruskiu's inspection)
by which the book was subsequently illustrated. Kuskin's letter was reprinted in
the catalogue (No. 5, December 1883) of T. Thorp, bookseller, 7 and 8, Gun Street,
Reading ; and in Igdratil, June 1890, vol. i. p. 213 ; and thence in Riukinuma,
part i., IS^O, p. 31.
The second letter is from the Artixt, March 1900, voL 27, p. 374. The letter
was written to Miss Eleanor Rowe, who had asked Raskin about the carvings
executed by Andrea Brustoloae (1070-1732) for the library of the church of
S3. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice.]
(1)
BRANTWOOD, 18th February, 1881.
MY DEAR SIR, — My respect for your earnestness and admiration of your
skill have hitherto prevented ray undertaking the difficult task of quali-
fiedly praising what, excellent for your immediate purpose, is not yet in
harmony with the precepts of the best masters in wood-carving. Forgive
me my inevitable delay. I am now more at leisure, but may not be able
to think of the matter for some time to come. I trust this note may
assure your public of my sympathy in your general aims, and my gratitude
for the sincerity with which you have represented both the construction
and decoration of old English furniture.
Believe me, your faithful servant,
JOHN KUSKIN.
(2)
HKHNK Hirx, ?>th D&*., 1882.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I am sorry not to be able to answer your question ;
but can assure you that you will only waste your time in looking after
celebrated works in wood-carving. Nothing, in wood, is admired, but the
snips and snacks of vulgar tours-de-force and mere redundancy of stupidity
in accumulation of figure. Your duty at a school is not to teach the history
of wood-carving, but to show your pupils unquestionably good examples
of a simple style, and to explain to them why they are good. You may
learn more from a moulding bracket or two in old French houses, than
from all the celebrated pieces in Europe. There is excellent work on
the stalls of some of our English Cathedrals also, and a week spent in
one of their chancels will teach you more than all the books that exist on
such matters.
I am, Madam, your faithful servant,
JOHN RLSKJV
556 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
[From the Oxford University Herald, May 28, 1881. Reprinted in Igdrasil,
August 1890, vol. i. pp. 301-302, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 55-56
(No. 53).]
To the Editor of the " Oxford University Herald "
BBANTWOOD, 23rd May, 1881.
Sm, — I am of course much interested by your kindly (so far as it is
personal to myself) notice of my school in Oxford, in your Saturday's second
leading article ; and I think you may have pleasure in receiving assurance
from me, for those of your readers whom the matter may interest, that I
am not yet either out of heart or out of breath ; and have much in mind
and partly in hand for the completion of what I was permitted to found
in the University galleries, of systematic art teaching. But I write this
hastily in order to prevent your spending space or time on the idea that
my system of teaching can ever be amalgamated with any commercial or
decorative (upholsterers, — people really mean), or Departmental Exposition
and Firm-patent-advertisement-Art schools, or schooling, whatsoever. The
fact is, while in materiel and trained subordinate tutorship (I have really
nobody working under me anywhere but Mr. Macdonald, to whose patient
energy the persistence of the Oxford schools in their original method is
greatly owing) — while, I say, in available copies — elementary books and
minor matters — my system is yet little more than imaginary, in its laid-
down principles it is already too copious. I have written not only far
more than enough, but so much more than enough that nobody can find
out the gist of the business through the voluminous text of it. But the gist
has been given, and in very clear terms, over and over again, and to this
following purpose ; partly, indeed, as I have said, not discoverable without
pains ; but also when arrived at, so little popular or palatable, that the few
detectors usually cover it up again the moment they catch sight of it, and
never give hint of their trouvaille more, either to themselves or anybody else.
(a) Shopmen are to be educated in shops ; craftsmen in working rooms :
neither at universities.
(b) Artists, of whatever rank, are primarily craftsmen, and must be
brought up in the schools of their craft. The universities have
nothing to do with them, nor with their schools, any more than
with Portsmouth dockyards or Carron furnaces.
(c) Universities are for the education of gentlemen (conceivably also
of ladies — claiming, not the rights, but the lights, of loveliness) ;
of Gentlemen and Ladies, so far as Beings of that nature are
required by modern Developments.
(d) The universities should therefore teach consistently — universally —
and without thinking it necessary to avail themselves always of
the information contained in last month's magazines, so much
Greek, Latin, Music, Drawing, Mathematics and Natural History,
as all European Ladies and Gentlemen ought to know and practise.
(e) And English universities ought further to teach English Religion,
English History and English morals, so far as their tutors chance
to be acquainted with any of these things.
557
Under these five letters, the entire coherence of art-philosophy has
been really arranged, — if anybody will take the time necessary to follow it
out in the various books written during my professorship at Oxford ; l and
the special principles at the root of special requirements or inhibitions
have always been stated somewhere in as short English as I could write.
The difficulty is to find them ! I can't always now myself, but I think
other people might, if they liked. Thus, respecting the question of figure
study, chiefly touched upon in your article, here is the quite foundational
law and unconquerable fact: Eagles Nest (Lecture VIII., § l642), — "So
much of the nude body as in the daily life of the nation may be shown
with modesty, and seen with reverence and delight, so much, and no more,
ought to be shown by the material arts, either of painting or sculpture."
That law is irrefragable, for the craftsman and everybody else ; and
until our artists' schools are redisciplined under it, you will find they
remain — what you call Decorative — or worse. For what may be briefly
called Laic teaching of drawing, the study of the figure is possible, if the
student is first taught to study anything accurately ; but my general order
— "be sure that you can draw a hoof before you try to draw a foot, and
that you can paint a ruby before you try to paint a lip " — will be found
an extremely expedient one, and highly economical of time and trouble by
all students of average capacity.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE SHORES OF CONISTON
[From the Times, June 4, 1881. Reprinted in Igdrasil, July 1890, vol. i.
p. 254, and thence in Ruskinianu, part i., 1890, p. 46 (No. 44). The letter was read
by Mr. Joseph Greenwood, the district surveyor, at a meeting of the Ulverston
Union Rural Sanitary Authority, on June 2, 1881, when it was resolved that means
should be taken in accordance with the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act to stop
the nuisance complained of. Mr. Victor Marshall (of Monk Couiston) and Major
Harrison (misprinted Mayor in the Times) are mentioned as being Ruskin's nearest
neighbours, and two of the principal landowners in the district.]
BftANTWoon, May 27, 1881.
SIR, — I believe few people are more unwilling than I to become trouble-
some to neighbours ; but I find myself just now, in the absence of Mr.
Marshall and Major Harrison, left almost sole curator of the shores of
1 [On the point made in (a) and (b), see Lectures on Art, Vol. XX. p. 18,
and Vol. XXI. pp. xviii. , 165. On (c) — the education of a gentleman — see, again,
Lectures on Art, Vol. XX. pp. 17-21. With regard to (d) : for the place of
drawing and natural history in university education, see ibid., pp. 34, 35. On the
necessity of some elementary Greek in general education, see Vol. XVIII. p. 68,
and Vol. XXVIII. p. 494 ; its place in university education is implied in all
Ruskin's Oxford lectures. Similarly, for Latin, see Vol. XXVII. p. 143. On
music, see Ruskin's Rede lecture at Cambridge, Vol. XIX. pp. 174 seq. On
mathematics in university education, Ruskin does not dwell. ^Vith regard to (e),
the points are implied throughout his Oxford lectures.]
2 [Vol. XXII. p. 234.]
558 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Coniston Lake to the waterhead ; and as it appears to me that the good
people of the village have a general notion that their streams can wash
anything down, and the lake swallow anything up finally and innocuously,
I am a little afraid of the result of the religious faith in their waters of
comfort l as the summer heats draw on. Already the scents of the shore
have in many places become quite other than of narcissus and violet,
and the dead cats, dogs, and even sheep, of the district seem to be most
often unburied there like the unhappiest of Homeric chiefs. Would you
kindly tell me in what least obtrusive manner I may, when necessary,
bring some hint or shadow of legal as well as moral force to obtain
earlier privileges of sepulture for these remains, and — which is still more
a matter of importance in my mind — to prevent the fouling of streams
by miscellaneous refuse ?
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
SHORT WORDS AND LONG
[Contributed by a correspondent to Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. pp. 63-64,
and thence reprinted in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 91 (No. 96).]
BKANTWOOD, 1st July, 1881.
MY DEAR SIR, — Thanks for your book and letter. I am too old to
read anything but first-rate work now. I have no time for my Plato or
Pindar — how much less for new books ! — but I can tell from your letter
that you have good and tender feeling; only, once for all, never say
" potentiality " for " power," nor any other word of six syllables for one of
two — and don't mind my "lofty" teachings, but obey the simple and lowly
ones — mine or anybody's.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
GEORGE ELIOT
[Addressed to some one who had complained of the criticism of George Eliot
in Fiction, Fair and Foul, §§ 17, 22, 29, 108 (above, pp. 282, 286, 294, 377).
The letter was first printed in the Star, September 25, 1890 ; and was reprinted in
the Philadelphia Poet Lore, November 1890, vol. ii. p. 610, and in the Pall Mall
Gazette, December 10, 1890. Reprinted (No. 125) in Riutkiniana, part i., 1890,
p. 112 (where in line 6 from the end "ambiguity" was misprinted "antiquity").]
BRANTWOOD, October 2, 1881.
DEAR SIR, — You are not alone in your admiration of George Eliot ; nor
did I write my criticism of her in any expectation of its being accepted,
but, as I do all my own work, with absolute disregard of public opinion,
1 [Psalms xxiii. 2 (Prayer Book version).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 559
and on principles of taste which have been forgotten for three hundred
years. No critic is good for anything who cannot judge of a painter by
a line, and an author by a sentence. I read enough of George Eliot ten
years ago to know her qualities ; but, having some personal regard for
her, said nothing about her, till the time when other people think the fit-
ting occasion come for their praise. I have always praised the living, and
judged — the dead.1 The ambiguity you complain of means simply that, in
detesting with my whole soul the paltry tragedies of the modern novelist,
I would not trouble myself with such a vile story as that of The Mill on
the Floss until my friend's confused report of it necessitated my doing so.
Foregone conclusions are the business of modern cliques, parties, and sects.
Mine have been tried for half a. lifetime before a word of them is written.
Yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
NURSERIES
[This letter first appeared on pp. 82-83 of Life and Teaching of John Ruskin,
by J. M. Mather (Manchester, 1883). It appears also in the numerous later
editions of the book. It was reprinted in the Daily News, November 10, 1883 ; in
Igdrasil, August 1890, vol. i. p. 297 ; and thence in Rusldniana, part i., 1890, p. 51
(No. 47).]
BRANTWOOD, Nov. 23, 1881.
MY DEAR , I have never written a pamphlet on nurseries : first,
because I never write about anything except what I know more of than
most other people ; secondly, because I think nothing much matters in a
nursery — except the mother, the nurse, and the air. So far as I have notion
or guess in the matter myself, beyond the perfection of those three necessary
elements, I should say the rougher and plainer everything the better — no
lace to cradle cap, hardest possible bed and simplest possible food accord-
ing to age, and floor and walls of the cleanablest. All education to beauty
is, first, in the beauty of gentle human faces round a child ; secondly, in
the fields — fields meaning grass, water, beasts, flowers and sky. Without
these no man can be educated humanly. He may be made a calculating
machine, a walking dictionary, a painter of dead bodies, a twangler or
scratcher on keys or catgut, a discoverer of new forms of worms in mud ;
but a properly so-called human being — never. Pictures are, / believe, of no
use whatever by themselves. If the child has other things right, round
it and given to it — its garden, its cat, and its window to the sky and
stars — in time, pictures of flowers and beasts and things in Heaven and
Heavenly earth may be useful to it. But see first that its realities are
heavenly.
I am, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Compare Vol. VI. pp. 473-474 ; Vol. XIV. pp. 45-46 ; Vol. XVI. p. 32 ;
and Vol. XX. pp. 27-28. J
560 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY SOCIETIES
[This letter, written in reply to an offer of the Presidentship of the Associated
Societies of the University of Edinburgh, was addressed to Mr. E. Monteith Macphail
(Secretary), and printed in the Daily News, February 8, 1882. Reprinted in Igdrasil
August 1890, vol. i. p. 303, and thence in Rutkiniana, part L, 1890, p. 57 (No. 55).
Raskin seems again to have been approached on the subject, for the Globe,
January 17, 1883, said: "Last night at a meeting of the Associated Societies of
the University of Edinburgh, a letter was read from Mr. Ruskin, the president, to
the effect that he might be in Edinburgh in November next." As we have seen
(Vol. XXXIII. p. xli.), he had thought of giving an address to the students.]
BRANTWOOD [February 1882].
MY DEAR SIR, — I very gratefully acknowledge your favour of yesterday's
date, and the courtesy of its message, no less than its more serious mean-
ing. The confidence placed in me by the youth of Sir Walter's town —
may I say my father's also?1 — and much more to me than mine, will, I
hope, give me the best encouragement possible in the work which I am
at present planning for years to come — if permitted to come — and what-
ever I can be to them as a helper I will be to the best of my power.
I cannot, after reading your message from them, doubt their acquitting
me of having paused at first in reply to their call, either in disrespect to
them or in affectation. My late illnesses 2 have made it necessary for me,
if not to cease work, at least to waste none ; and I was entirely doubtful
if any of my old-fashioned principles could be at present spoken for any
good, except in the form of quietly recorded protest, which is not the duty
of a " President." However, if even it turn out eventually that I cannot
much help you, at least I will promise not to hinder; and to remain in
such ways as you can show me, always your societies' respectful and
faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
JUMBO AT THE «ZOO"
[From the Morning Post, February 25, 1882. Reprinted in Igdrasil, Decem-
ber 1890, vol. ii. pp. 100-101, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 113
(No. 129). Jumbo, who had been a popular favourite at the Zoological Gardens
for many years, had become difficult and was sold to P. T. Barnum, the American
showman ; he was killed on the Grand Trunk Railway, near S. Thomas, Ontario,
on September 15, 1885, by being struck by a passing goods train as his keeper
was leading him and other elephants along the track (Times, September 17, 1885).]
To the Editor of the " Morning Post "
HERNE HILL, Feb. 23 [1882].
SIR, — Permit me, as a life fellow of the Zoological Society, to contradict
in the sternest and most direct manner the statement made by its secretary
in your columns of to-day that " it is quite certain that the members of
See Prceterita, i. §§ 141-145.]
In 1878 and 1881: see Vol. XXV. pp. xxv.-xxvi. ; Vol. XXXIII. p. xxviii.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 561
the council share in this regret " (at selling their old elephant to a cara-
van) "as much as any of the fellows." I, for one of the said fellows, am
not in the habit of selling my old pets or parting with my old servants
because I find them subject occasionally, perhaps even "periodically," to
fits of ill temper ; and I not only " regret " the proceedings of the council,
but disclaim them utterly, as disgraceful to the city of London and dis-
honourable to common humanity. If the council want money let them
beg it, — if they want a stronger elephant's house let them build it ; there
is brick and iron enough in London to keep a single beast safe with, I
suppose, and if there are not children in London brave enough to back
him in his afternoon walk, let them look at him and go to their rocking-
horses. It seems to me, however, that Mr. Sclater's letter l is quite ground
enough to justify the police in preventing any further direct violence to
the animal ; and while the council and Mr. Barnum's agent are concoct-
ing new methods of treachery to him, there is time for the children to
say their say, and pay their pence, and make Jumbo their own for ever.
Then, if there are any other fellows of my mind, we'll find board and
lodging for him, and peace.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
A MEDAL FROM THE PRINCE OF MANTUA
[This letter was read at a meeting of "the Mantua and Montferrat Medal
Fund held at Exeter Hall on June 15, 1883," and printed at p. 6 of the Report of
Annual Meeting, etc. Reprinted in the Biographical Magazine, No. xv. vol. ix.,
October 1887. (Printed for the proprietors, 46 Lower Kenniugtou Lane, S.E.)
The Magazine gives (pp. 69-96) a biography of " His Royal and Most Serene
Highness Charles de Bourbon d'Este Paleologus Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua and
Montferrat and Ferrara in Italy, Prince of Nevers and Rethel and Alei^on in
France," and traces his descent further back to David, King of Israel. " Charles
Ottley Groom Napier, calling himself Prince of Mantua," was the author of
numerous works on scientific subjects, and an ardent advocate of Temperance and
Vegetarianism. In imitation of the medals awarded by the Gonzagas in the
Middle Ages, the Prince in 1879 " reconstituted the Academy of Sciences and
Arts," denominating it "the Mantua and Montferrat Medal Fund." Among the
earliest recipients of medals were Sir Richard Owen and Ruskin (whose letters of
thanks appear on p. 85 of the Magazine).']
HKRNE HILL, 2nd April, 1882.
SIR, — I trust to your kindness and sympathy to express for me, better
than in the weakness of just passed crisis of illness I am the least able
myself to express, my most heartfelt recognition of the grace done me by
the Prince of Mantua, and the extreme joy given me in being received
into this roll of those who have loved Italy and been thought dear to
her. For the Prince will do me the justice to trust my earnest saying
of what is chiefly in my heart : this medal — the joy of seeing still such
a Prince, such as my own English ancestors 2 used to seek the Courts of,
1 [Mr. Philip Lutley Sclater, F.R.S. ; secretary of the Zoological Society, 1859-
1902.J
1 [For Ruskin's ancestry, in England and Scotland, see Vol. XXXV.]
562 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
for all such lessons in what was noblest, whether in learning or the
arts, (such as I trust when these dark times are past, with all their
tumult, Italy may again surround the thrones of, and with them worship
in Temples now laid desolate) : — the joy of this, I repeat, is far more to
me than the personal exultation ; but I never yet — and I am now sixty-
three — had so much pleasure given me by any notice or kindness. I must
write again when I am better able — perhaps I may be permitted to do
so when I send you the photograph, which I will have taken with careful
sitting, in the best obedience I can render to the Prince's wish, as ex-
pressed by you at the close of your kind letter. The beautiful medal
reached my hands in perfect safety this morning.
Believe me, Sir, with sincere respect,
Your faithful and obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
THE SECRETARY OF THE PRINCE OF MANTUA.
PHOTOGRAPHS
[From a facsimile circular issued by Mr. Herbert R. Barraud, the photographer.
The letter was written after a visit by Mr. Barraud to Mr. Arthur Severn's studio
at Herne Hil!. Mr. Barraud published a lithograph facsimile of the letter, portions
of which he also printed upon his prospectuses. Ruskin sat to him again in the
spring of 1885. The letter was printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, November 12,
1886 ; also in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 101, and thence in Ruskiniana,
part i., 1890, pp. 113-114 (No. 130).]
30th April, 1882.
DEAR Mn. BARRAUD, — We are all much more than pleased with these
results of your extreme skill and care ; they are the first photographs ever
done of me that expressed what good or character there is in me for my
own work ; and as pure photography they seem to me to go as far as the
art can at this day (and I do not believe it can ever do much better).
The portrait of Baby is also a rare success, both in your choice of
action and the precision of effect : it is extremely and singularly beautiful.
Mr. Severn was good — and my Lucerne drawing better than itself: only my
favourite Ruth has failed ; l but she was put off too long, and not studied
enough. However, it was as well, seeing the hitherto difficulty of getting
an endurable likeness of me for the friends who care for me, that you
gave your time to that immediate business.
I admit, for once — as you have managed to use it — the good of studio
light ! But some day you must please do one of me in open light, for
the sake of fair play to the Day and to your own skill, which I am sure
can conquer more difficulties than you have tried.
And so believe me always gratefully and faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Miss Ruth Mercier, who had nursed Ruskin through one of his illnesses.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 563
EMERSON
[To Alexander Ireland, author of The Book-lover's Enchiridion, The Land o' Cakes
and Brither Scots, with a Reminiscence of Sir Walter Scott (1882), and In Memoriam
R. W. Emerson, Recollections of his Visits to England (1882). Printed in facsimile in
the Bookman, April 1892, vol. ii. p. 15.]
BRANTWOOD, Qth February, '83.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am extremely flattered and obliged by the gift of
your books, especially the paper on Scott and the Enchiridion. I have
never cared much for Emerson ; l he is little more than a clever gossip, and
his egoism reiterates itself to provocation. Still I am extremely glad you
have given these careful notes of him. All his friends seem to have loved
him much. — With very sincere thanks,
Believe me respectfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
TO THE SALTAIRE SALT SCHOOLS
[From the Times, April 16, 1883. Reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii.
p. 102, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 115 (No. 134). The Salt Schools
were founded by Sir Titus Salt (1803-1876) in the town which grew up around his
alpaca works and was called after him.]
[1883.]
I am sincerely grateful for the honour of your letter, but my only hope
of being able to fulfil the duty lately resumed at Oxford is in total refusal
of other responsibilities. None could be more grave, none declined by
me with more regret, than this connected with the presidency of such an
institution as the Salt Schools.
THE W. J. BUNNEY MEMORIAL FUND
[This letter, addressed to the widow of W. J. Bunuey, the artist, was printed
and circulated among subscribers to the Fund collected in memorial of him. It
was reprinted in Igdrasil, June 1890, vol. i. p. 214, and thence in Ruskiniana,
part i., p. 32. Bunney died in 1882, after completing his large picture of St. Mark's
(for which, see Vol. X. pp. Ixiii., 82). An exhibition of his works was held
at the Fine Art Society in 1882, and Mr. Wedderburn wrote a Memoir of the
artist which appeared as a preface to the Catalogue. A "communication from
Mr. Ruskin" promised therein was not written. For notices of Bunney and his
work, see Vol. XXI. pp. 33-34 n. and the places there noted. See also the
General Index.]
BRANTWOOD, 10th August, 1883.
Mv DEAR MADAM, — 1 am honoured in receiving, from the subscribers to
the fund which has been collected in memory of your husband, a charge
to convey to you such expression as may be possible to me of the feeling
in which it is presented to you for the fulfilment of his wishes, as you may
1 [See, however, the numerous references to him in the General Index.]
xxxiv. 2 N
564 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
judge fittest, in the education of his children. I have called it a memorial
fund ; but indeed the subscribers recognize that Mr. Bunney's name will
remain ineffaceably connected with the history of all efforts recently mad^
in Italy for preservation of true record of her national monuments ; nor less
with the general movement in which he so ardently and faithfully shared,
for the closer accuracy and nobler probity of pictorial — more especially of
landscape — art; a movement which was initiated about the time when he
first took up his residence in Venice, and of which he remained, to the day
of his death, the most clearly recognized exponent and representative to
the foreign schools, both of Italy and America. This fund has been col-
lected, therefore, not, as is too often the case in such efforts, for the idle
inscription of a name which would otherwise have been forgotten, but,
trusting your husband's just fame to the lovers of Venice, it is presented
to you as a token of the solemn affection in which all we his friends hold,
and with which we shall always think of, a man whose careful art was the
constant and unstinted enthusiasm of an entirely pure, loyal, and rightly
religious soul.
And I pray you, Madam, now and always, since you know me one of
your husband's chief mourners, so also to hold me one of your most devoted
servants,
J. RUSKIN.
SEA PICTURES
[From the Bookseller, November 3, 1883, p. 1047- Reprinted (wrongly dated
"1853") in Igdrasil, part i., 1890, p. 33, and thence in Ruskiniana (No. 28). The
book referred to is Sea Pictures, by Dr. J. Macaulay (Religious Tract Society, 1883).]
DEAR DR. MACAULAY, — The beautiful book came with your letter. It is
far the best I have ever seen on its subject, and will be a most precious
gift-book for me. It leans, I think, still a little too much to the terror
of the sea ; and instead of colouring only Stanfield's melancholy though
admirable " Lost Ship," l I should have liked the blue bays of Greece, or
calm islet shores of the Pacific. But all is well done that you have
endeavoured to do, and the book is extremely precious to me.
Believe me ever, yours faithfully,
J. RUSKIN.
SYDNEY SMITH
[From the Life and Times of Sydney Smith, by Stuart J. Reid, 1884, p. 374.
The letter was addressed to the author by Ruskin, to whom the book is dedicated.
On the subject of the letter, see Prceterita, ii. §§ 166-169.]
OXFORD, Nov. Uth, 1883.
MY DEAR SIR, — I wanted to tell you what deep respect I had for
Sydney Smith ; but my time has been cut to pieces ever since your note
1 [A reproduction of Stanfield's " Abandoned/' printed in colours by Edmund
Evans, is the frontispiece to the book. For notices of the picture (Academy,
1856), see Vol. XIII. p. 29, and Vol. XIV. p. 52.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 565
reached me. He was the first in the literary circles of London to assert
the value of Modern Painters, and he has always seemed to me equally
keen-sighted and generous in his estimate of literary efforts. His Moral
Philosophy is the only book on the subject which I care that my pupils
should read, and there is no man (whom I have not personally known)
whose image is so vivid in my constant affection.
Ever your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
«A PENNYWORTH OF THOUGHTS"
[From John Raskin: A Study, by the Rev. R. P. Downes, 1890. Addressed to
Mr. Downes, of Upper Norwood, editor of a periodical entitled Great Thoughts,
and consisting largely of excerpts from great writers. Mr. Downes had evidently
asked Ruskins permission to make use of excerpts from his writings. The above
letter is facsimiled at page 25 of the above pamphlet, which was published as
No. I. of the "Great Thoughts Library," by A. W. Hall, 131, Fleet Street, B.C.
Reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. pp. 101-102, aud thence in Ruskiniana,
part i., 1890, p. 114 (No. 131).]
BRANTWOOD, 30th Dec., '83.
SIR, — I am very glad to hear of a minister's editing such a periodical
as you propose, but 1 am not sanguine of its success. Do you think you
really can supply a pennyworth of thoughts a week ? Anyhow, if mine
here and there will serve, you are very welcome to them.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MR. HENRY GEORGE AND LAND REFORM
[From the Times, January 2, 1884. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September 1890,
vol. i. pp. 347-348, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 65 (No. 65).
Ruskin had been asked to preside at a meeting on " Progress and Poverty" to be
held by Mr. Henry George, the author of the book of that name.]
BRANTWOOD, December 31 [1883].
MY DEAR SIR, — I am quite past attending or presiding at public meet-
ings, but wish Mr. George all success in his efforts and an understanding
audience.
Most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
[In 1866, Ruskin, by way of giving employment to Cruikshank (then old and
in need), had planned the publication of a volume of fairy stories ; correspondence
on the subject will be found in a later volume (in letters to C. A. Howell).
Cruikshank executed two plates as a first instalment — representing " The Pied
Piper " and an " Old Soldier " respectively ; but these did not please Ruskin, and
the project was abandoned : compare Vol. XVIII. p. 49. The two trial plates
566 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
were lost ; but many years afterwards Mr. M. H. Spielmann discovered them in
the hands of dealers, and restored them to Raskin. Correspondence with Ruskin
ensued, Mr. Spielmann having suggested that " his latest criticism on Cruikshank
might be interesting to the public. ' Mr. Spielmann embodied Ruskin's letters in
an article in the Pall Mall Gazette, February 26, 1884, entitled " Mr. Ruskin on
George Cruikshank," and, more fully, in his John Ruskin, 1900, pp. 114, 115. For
Ruskin's appreciation of Cruikshank's earlier work, see Vol. XV. pp. 204, 222 ;
Vol. XIX. pp. 77-78 ; Vol. XXII. p. 488 ; and General Index.
The plate here introduced was etched by Crin'kshaiik from drawings by Ruskin.
The two lowest heads (from Verona and Venice respectively) were engraved by
Lupton for Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p. 150). A sheet of drawings
containing the other subjects was No. 177 in the Ruskin Exhibition of 1907, and
is thus inscribed by Ruskin : —
"The Spiritual Powers of Modern Lif&
f'£ov<rta TOW dfpos — Eph. ii. 2.
A. Scientific and Theological.
B. Luxurious and Social.
C. Contemplatively Progressive.
Pieces from the sculpture of Inferno in Porch of St. Maclou, Rouen.
Late Flamboyant. Sketched for 7 Lamps. — J. R."
"A." is the central of the three upper subjects, "B" the monster below, and "C"
the head below the niche.]
(*) [1884.]
It was precisely because Mr. Cruikshank could not return to the manner
of the Grimm plates, but etched too finely and shaded too much, that our
project came to an end. I have no curiosity about the plates. ... I
never allow such things to trouble me, else I should have vexation enough.
There's a lovely plate of Stones of Venice — -folio size — lost these twenty
years!1
January 21, 1884.
It is a pleasure to me to answer your obliging letter with full permis-
sion to use my note on Cruikshank in any way you wish, and to add, if you
care to do so, the expression of my perpetually increasing wonder at the
fixed love of ugliness in the British soul which renders the collective works
of three of our greatest men — Hogarth, Bewick, and Cruikshank, — totally
unfit for the sight of women and children, and fitter for the furniture of
gaols and pigstyes than of the houses of gentlemen and gentlewomen.
In Cruikshank the disease was connected with his incapacity of colour ;
but Hogarth and Bewick could both paint.
It may be noticed in connection with the matter that Gothic grotesque
sculpture is far more brutal in England than among the rudest continental
nations ; and the singular point of distraction is that such ugliness on the
Continent is only used with definitely vicious intent by degraded artists ; but
with us it -seems the main amusement of the virtuous ones !
1 [Perhaps the additional plate in the Examples of Venetian Architecture now
given at p. 350 of Vol. XL]
Studies in Grotesque.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 567
PAINTING AND MUSIC
[From the Daily Telegraph, February 11, 1884. Reprinted in Igdrasil, August
1890, vol. i. p. 300, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 54 (No. 51).]
To the Editor of the "Daily Telegraph"
HEBNE HILL, Feb. 10th [1884].
SIR, — Will you permit me to enter a remonstrance against two general
assumptions in your yesterday's article on the Queen Square School of Art ?
— the first, that no girl or woman will ever wish to paint except to get a
living; and the second, that the diversion of a portion of the wages fund
from the employment of girls in useful household work to their employment
in the production of Christmas cards must infallibly be a benefit to the
sex and the nation. Might not schools be instituted which should teach
the rich and poor alike the arts of painting and music ? and might not both
these arts be occasionally practised by the women of England in modes
beneficial to the public, yet not altogether dependent on its patronage ?
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. Hi SKIN.
A NEWLY DISCOVERED "TURNER"
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, February 29, 1884, thus introduced : " At the
annual conversazione of the Literary and Philosophical Society, held at Sheffield
last evening, considerable attention was given to a recently discovered water-colour
drawing by J. M. W. Turner. It was picked up at a second-hand shop by Mr.
Jackson Smith, a local manufacturer. Having a suspicion that it might be a
Turner, he sent it to Mr. Ruskin for his opinion, who replied," etc. The drawing
measured 13 in. x 10, and bore the words, " Lake near Lord Harewood's House,
Yorkshire."]
[February, 1884.]
Your drawing is indeed a very curious and beautiful example of
Turner's earliest works. You are extremely wicked to trust it to the
post with only that bit of pasteboard, and it is a mercy it is not crushed
into a curl paper. In case you are ever disposed to part with it, I think
you might count on my being ready to outbid the dealer.
"THE CHURCH REFORMER"
[From the Church Reformer, February 15, 1884, vol. iii. p. 25 ("We quote
the following from a welcome letter addressed by Mr. Ruskin to the editor").
Reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette, February 15, 1884. The number for January
15, 1884, was sent to Ruskiu. Its attitude is sufficiently indicated in the full title —
The Church Reformer: an Organ of Christian Socialism and Church Reform, edited by
Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, B.A.]
{February, 1884.]
I am very greatly obliged by your sending me the first number of
your this year's issue. I never yet looked through a paper I thought so
right, or likely to be so useful.
568 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RAILWAYS IN DERBYSHIRE
[This and the two following letters first appeared in the Manchester City News,
April 5, 12, and 19, 1884. They were reprinted in Igdrasil, July 1890, vol. i. pp. 249-
253, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 41-45 (Nos. 38, 39, and 40).
The subject is the Dore and Chinley railway, projected by an independent company
in 1884, afterwards taken up by the Midland Company and completed in 1894. It
"opened up" the North Peak district (Castleton, etc.). Upon the subject of this
projected new railway a correspondent, " C. E. T.," had, in writing to the Manchester
City News, alluded to the opinions of Ruskin on railways. Thereupon Mr. J. F.
Uttley had pointed out that "C. E. T." was wrong in his views of what Ruskin's
opinions were. " If people," wrote Mr. Uttley, " would only read Mr. Ruskin's
works straight through instead of picking out and objecting to the little bits they
do read, there would be a great deal less misunderstanding of one of the greatest
of living Englishmen." In the same issue with Mr. Uttley's letter appeared another
letter, signed "Progress," in which the writer said, "We have no more right to
poison the air than we have to destroy the scenery. Yet it is done, and must be
done to an increasing extent every day." "Progress" empowered the editor to give
his name (which was done in the issue of April 5) — Mr. S. Bramwell, of Cheetham
Hill, Manchester. For Ruskin on railways, see in this volume, pp. 135-143, 603-604.
There was a parody of Ruskin's letters in Punch, August 23, 1884 (" On all Fours
Clavigera").]
To the Editor of the "Manchester City News"
BRANTWOOD, 2nd April, 1884.
SIR, — I am obliged by your insertion of Mr. Uttley's letter in your
impression of March 29, which has to-day been forwarded to me ; and I
should be glad to say a few words in reply to the letter next following
from the advocate of poisoned air, if he will give his real name. There
can be no possible reason for the concealment of it by so benevolent a
character.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
To the Editor of the " Manchester City News "
BHANTWOOD, 7th April, 1884.
SIR, — I will at once meet the frankness of your correspondent, Mr
Bramwell, by admitting, for the basis of all discussion, that he writes as a
philanthropist, and has no personal interest in the proceedings he defends.
On the other side, I confess myself no less frankly to write as a misan-
thrope. Not to the extent of wishing anybody any harm ; but quite dis-
tinctly to the point of wishing most people out of my way when I am
disposed to enjoy myself. Mine ease in mine inn1 is not dependent on
1 [Part 1, King Henry IV., Act iii. sc. 3.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 569
the numbers of its table d'hote: when I walk, I particularly like to go at
my own pace, and not spend my breath in conversation. At a watering-
place, I take pleasure in the springs, but not in the drinkers ; and, were I
to visit the Hebrides, would rather meet a black-headed gull than either
the Lord of the Isles or Dr. Johnson.
But having openly made this admission, I beg that it may not be
supposed that I either wish or anticipate that the world and his wife
should keep themselves, either out of my way, or put themselves out of
their own. Whatever I have advised or deprecated as to their homes, or
their travels, has been absolutely in their interest, and from their point of
view, so far as I could conceive either. But it has always been written
also in a conviction founded on some knowledge of past history, that the
things which people immediately want are not always those that are best
for them, and that there may be other things which they don't in the
least want, or are even incapable at present of imagining, which would be
extremely good for them.
Take, for example, this singular unanimity of the inhabitants of Amble-
side — that is to say, accurately, of the innkeepers, shopkeepers, guides, and
other ministers to the strangers in Ambleside — for a railway from Lakeside
into their midst. I have long known their wish, with anticipation of its
probable success; and, having seen the results of railway enterprise from
the beginning, can perhaps carry forward the " progress " of improvement
in my imagination to a point beyond even the hopes of your philanthropic
correspondent. It is easy to conceive — (I have seen far more wonderful
changes) — a High Street of magnificent establishments in millinery and
" nouveautes," running along under the hills from Ambleside to Grasmere,
with the railway to Keswick immediately in their rear. I behold the
sublimity of Wordsworth Crescent and Silver How Circus, commanding the
esplanade which will encompass the waters of Rydal and Grasmere — princi-
pally then, of necessity, composed of sewage ; while the " rivulets in May "
which once leaped with Louisa in the shade,1 will be usefully disposed in
successive tanks, of which the scum will be inflammable. A " Lift " to the
top of Helvellyn, and a Refreshment Room on the summit, will prepare
the enthusiastic traveller for a " drop " to Ulleswater ; while beyond the
rectilinear shores of Thirlmere reservoir, the Vale of St. John will be laid
out in a succession of tennis grounds, and the billiard rooms of the Bridal
of Triermain 2 Casino be decorated in the ultimate exquisiteness of Parisian
taste.
Such development of our resources in the Lake District is, I suppose,
inevitable : I do not therefore question how far desirable. In Derbyshire,
on the contrary, there may perhaps be yet somewhat alleged in defence
of things as they are ; only, having time to write no more to-day, may I
first know from Mr. Bramwell whether, thus far, I have justly interpreted
his aspirations ?
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [For the lines from Wordsworth's Louisa, here referred to, see Vol. XXVIII.
p. 116.]
2 [For other references to the Vale of St. John (the scene of Scott's poem),
see above, p. 137.]
570 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
To the Editor of the " Manchester City News "
BRANTWOOD, Easter Day [April 13], 1884.
SIR, — In what I would fain further say in defence of the Peak of
Derbyshire, I am compelled to admit not only the bias of my general
misanthropy, but that also of a private interest — (so far as that word may
be conceived as having any other sense than that of Dividend). Much as
I have been wont to love Thirlmere and Helvellyn, there are in other
climes lovelier lakes and sweeter strands ; and though I should be driven
out of Brantwood by the trippers dancing on my lawn and the smokers
sauntering in my garden, I could still set up my rest where I could see
the lamb leap and hear the Windhover cry.1 But, speaking still wholly
for myself, as an Epicurean Anchorite and Monastic Misanthrope, I pray
leave to submit, as a deeply oppressed and afflicted Brother of that Order,
that I can't find anything like Derbyshire anywhere else. "J'ai beau," as
our polite neighbours untranslatably express it, to scale the precipices of
the Wengern Alp with Manfred — to penetrate with Faust the defiles of
the Brocken : — the painlessly accessible turrets of Matlock High Tor, the
guiltlessly traceable Lovers' walks by the Derwent, have for me still more
attractive peril and a dearer witchery. Looking back to my past life, I
find, though not without surprise, that it owes more to the Via Gellia2
than the Via Mala — to the dripping wells of Matlock than the dust-rain
of Lauterbrunnen. And although I fully admit, as aforesaid, that we none
of us know what is good for us ; and though progressive England achiev-
ing her final purpose may one day be blessed, as eye hath not seen,8 in
her life of the forge and factory, varied only by excursions from one coal-
hole to another, — in the meantime I must beg Mr. Bramwell to understand
that we poor landscape lovers and painters at least know our own business
and our own likings ; and that it is perfectly open to him to ignore us ;
but neither to teach us nor to please. Let it be put to the vote by all
manner of franchise which of us is to have our way ; but do not hope to
explain to us that the virtues of the Black Country " no delighted beauty
lack." 4 If I admire, for instance, in my perversity, the statue of Psyche
at Naples,5 and your correspondent wishes to make lime of it, by all
means let us vote about the matter with what triumph of majorities we
may. But if Mr. Bramwell advises me that it is proposed — far from in-
juring, much to embellish my Psyche — that her principal features are to
be left entirely unmodified, only a small smut put on the tip of her nose,
and, quite in the style of the inlaid jewelling of the ancients, but with
more propriety and economy, a red-hot cinder put into each of her eyes,
I may not be able to express to Mr. Bramwell what Mr. Wordsworth calls
1 [For Ruskin's delight in this bird, see Vol. XXIV. p. xxix., and Vol. XXVI.
p. 305.]
2 [The road that runs up Bonsall Dale, named in compliment to the family of
Cell of Hopton, through whose estate it passes. For Ruskin's various visits to
Matlock, see the General Index.]
* [Isaiah Ixiv. 4 ; 1 Corinthians ii. 9.]
* [Othello, Act i. sc. 3, line 290.]
6 [For another reference to the statue, see Vol. XII. p. 208.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 571
" the difference to me," l but I hope that he will admit the possibility of
my real discomfort, in an arrangement which is a matter of indifference
to him.
Enough said in my own cause. I now — and I hope, after this candour,
now without suspicion — take up that of the public — public in the widest
sense, including the Derbyshire peasant, to whom his hills are, your corre-
spondent says, no more than a landmark — the tripper from Manchester or
Birmingham, and the traveller from beyond sea. That little heap of crys-
talline hills, white over with sheep, white under with dog-tooth spar, is a
treasure alike to them all, richer than Cathay, brighter than Golconda.
" A landmark only ! " — and Heaven bless the mark — what better should
they be ? and who is he, and what is his guilt, who removes his neigh-
bour's landmark?2
Birmingham tripper ! Oh, my expatiating friend, do you want to take
Birmingham with you wherever you go, then ? — or think to refresh your-
selves from the foundry by picnic in a lime-kiln?
Learned traveller, gentle and simple — but above all English Paterfamilias
— think what this little piece of mid-England has brought into so narrow
compass, of all that should be most precious to you. In its very minute-
ness it is the most educational of all the districts of beautiful landscape
known to me. The vast masses, the luxurious colouring, the mingled
associations of great mountain scenery, amaze, excite, overwhelm, or exhaust
— but too seldom teach ; the mind cannot choose where to begin. But
Derbyshire is a lovely child's alphabet ; an alluring first lesson in all that's
admirable, and powerful chiefly in the way it engages and fixes the atten-
tion. On its miniature cliffs a dark ivy leaf detaches itself as an object
of importance ; you distinguish with interest the species of mosses on the
top ; you count like many falling diamonds the magical drops of its petri-
fying well ; the cluster of violets in the shade is an Armida's garden to
you.8 And the grace of it all ! and the suddenness of its enchanted changes,
and terrorless grotesque — Grotesque par excellence! It was a meadow a
minute ago, now it is a cliff, and in an instant is a cave — and here was a
brooklet, and now it is a whisper under ground ; turn but the corner of
the path, and it is a little green lake of incredible crystal ; and if the
trout in it lifted up their heads and talked to you, you would be no more
surprised than if it was in the Arabian Nights. And half a day's work of
half a dozen navvies, and a snuff-box full of dynamite, may blow it all
into Erebus, and diabolic Night, for ever and ever.
Think of it, — how inexorable then the Deities, how irrevocable the
Deed. Your Psyche of Naples made lime of, there is yet marble in Paris
out of which Love may one day carve another, or if not, a Dovedale
milkmaid may perhaps please him no less. But, once your snowy cliff
blasted away, and your pure trout pool filled with potsherds, — Nature
herself has no healing in all her compassion for you, Time no restitution
in all his ages. And there is yet this to be noted of the ghastly precision
1 [For another reference to the poem, " She dwelt among the untrodden ways,"
see Vol. XXV. p. 389.]
1 [Deuteronomy xix. 14.]
3 [See Rogers's Italy (" Como ") for a similar use of " Armida's palace " (in
Tasso) as a type of enchantment]
572 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
of the destroying force, in Derbyshire country, that it is in the very Eyes
of it that the fiery brand is plunged. In almost every other lovely hill-
district, and in all rich Lowland, the railway kills little more than its own
breadth and a square mile or two about every station, and what it leaves is
as good as what it takes. But in Derbyshire the whole gift of the country
is in its glens. The wide acreage of field or moor above is wholly without
interest ; it is only in the clefts of it, and the dingles, that the traveller
finds his joy, and in those clefts every charm depends on the alternate jut
and recess of rock and field, on the successive discovery of blanched height
and woody hollow ; and, above all, on the floretted banks and foam-crisped
wavelets of the sweetly wilful stream. Into the very heart and depth of
this, and mercilessly bending with the bends of it, your railway drags its
close clinging damnation. The rocks are not big enough to be tunnelled,
they are simply blasted away ; the brook is not wide enough to be bridged,
it is covered in, and is thenceforward a drain ; and the only scenery left
for you in the once delicious valley is alternation of embankments of slag
with pools of slime.
I have not said, I leave the clergyman and physician to say, what
moral or sanitary changes follow the disgrace of the gifts of Nature and
the wreck of her order. But I may at least advise your correspondent
that envenomed air is deadlier to the young than the old, and that, under
his progressive rule, women are seldom likely to attain the age at which
he ceases to pity them. But the question of to-day is not for the crone,
but the babe. What favours of high Destiny has England to promise to
her children, who have been reared in mephitic fume instead of mountain
breeze ; who have had for playground heaps of ashes instead of banks of
flowers ; whose Christmas holidays brought them no memory, whose Easter
sun no hope ; and from whose existence of the present, and the future,
Commerce has filched the Earth, and Science shut the Sky ?
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BILLIARDS
[From the Daily Telegraph, June 6, 1884. Reprinted in Igdrasil, August 1890,
vol. i. pp. 302-303, and thence in Rmkiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 58-59 (No. 58).]
To the Editor of the u Daily Telegraph "
BRANTWOOD [June 1884].
SIR, — As you have honoured me by referring to my likes and dislikes
in your interesting article on games, will you kindly correct the impression
left on your readers that I "should dislike" either billiards or chess. I
am greatly interested in the dynamics of billiards, but I cannot play, and
I deeply deplore the popularity of the game among the lower classes on
the Continent. Chess, on the contrary, I urge pupils to learn, and enjoy
it myself, to the point of its becoming a temptation to waste of time often
very difficult to resist ; and I have really serious thoughts of publishing
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 573
a selection of favourite old games by chess-players of real genius and
imagination, as opposed to the stupidity called chess-playing in modern
days. Pleasant " play," truly ! in which the opponents sit calculating and
analysing for twelve hours, tire each other nearly into apoplexy or idiocy,
and end in a draw or a victory by an odd pawn !
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
.RULES OF PERSPECTIVE
[Given in facsimile at the beginning of a little book with the following title-
page : —
Rules of Perspective. | Explained, illustrated, and adapted | to practical
use. | By | M. M. Runciman. j With Letter of Approval | from | Professor
John Ruskin, M.A., Hon. LL.D., etc., etc. | Ars probat Artificem. | London :
| Winsor & Newton, Limited, 38, Rathbone Place, W.
The book was published in 1884. For Mr. Charles Runciman, Ruskin's first drawing
master, see Preeterita, i. §§ 84, 87.]
4th June, '84.
DEAR Miss RUNCIMAN, — I assure you it gave me true pleasure to see
your writing again ; and to learn that you had made the alterations sug-
gested in the arrangement of your Father's rules, — before not wholly clear.
Your having done so enables me at once to guarantee the scientific accuracy
and easy applicability of the rules ; and with the greater security because
I myself learned all the perspective from them which I ever apply to land-
scape practice.
Believe me always, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
AMATEUR CHESS
[The first of these letters is from the Chess Monthly, edited by L. Hoffer and
J. H. Zukertort (published by Jas. Wade, 18, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden,
W.C.), July 1884 (vol. v., No. 59, p. 321). Reprinted in Igdrasil, August 1890,
vol. i. pp. 305-306, and thence in Ruskiniana, pp. 59-60 (No. 59). Also reprinted
in the "Chess Column" of the Westminster Gazette, January 27, 1900.]
0)
To the Editors of the " Chess Monthly "
BBANTWOOD, June 25, 1884.
GENTLEMEN, — I have been much surprised and more flattered by the
notice taken of my short letter to the Telegraph on Amateur Chess ; l but
will you allow me a word of reply in your columns to the article on that
1 [That is, the preceding letter headed " Billiards."]
574 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
letter which appeared in Land and Water,1 followed up by one from Mephisto
in Knowledge ? To the editor of Land and Water I would reply, that I
never think of chess as a game to be played for money. I find it for
myself a most useful means of turning my thoughts out of any too deeply
formed channel ; and I would teach it to boys and girls just as I would
teach them to ride and dance, without wishing them to rival the skill,
or even always to adopt the style, of professional riders and dancers. To
Mephisto — and much more to the editor of Knowledge? whose ideas, it
seems to me, Mephisto is rather expressing than those of a great chess-
player— I would reply that imagination, in all the arts, all the sciences,
and all the games of men, is worth just as much now as it was in New-
ton's time, and will always be worth what it is now ; that, however little
coveted by the people who have not got any, it is a source of extreme
pleasure to its possessors, and is an extremely interesting part of total
human nature. In painting and poetry the workers scorn analysis, and
the best work defies it ; and, so far as chess is capable of analysis, it is
neither art nor play. Mephisto tells us there is only one reliable opening
known, and analysis will be doubtless crowned by showing that, as in a
scientific game, there can only be one reliable beginning, so there can
only be one possible end.
Meantime I am encouraged (and partly, indeed, provoked) by the various
letters I have received on this subject to proceed in my notion of collect-
ing a few pretty and easily-read games for examples of chess style to
beginners, keeping the openings as irregular as possible, and never allow-
ing the number of moves to pass forty.* But in the meantime, as there
is no longer a chess column in Society, might not you, gentlemen, grace-
fully concede a little space to " social " chess, and record every now and
then an easy but graceful game, well followed, wittily concluded, and yet
comprehensible by the ordinary intellect of an amateur ?
I am, gentlemen, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
* For example of a perfectly intelligible and pretty game in twenty moves, I
may instance Captain Kennedy's, No. 86 in Mr. Bird's most useful collection of
Chess Masterpieces. The kind of game which, however masterly, I call radically
bad in style, may be as simply illustrated by the 58-move one, No. 70, in which
the combatants exchange first their bishops, then their queens, then their knights,
and then their rooks, and pass the rest of their time in skulking about the board
with the odd rooks in chase of each other's pawns.
1 [In the Chess Column of June 14 (vol. 37, p. 563) Ruskin's letter was quoted,
and the writer objected that though "the play of these times is wanting in vigour,
colourless and watery," yet " brilliant dodges and imaginative traps will not pay."]
1 [The late R. A. Proctor. "Mephisto," at the head of "Our Chess Column " in
Knowledge for June 13, 1884 (vol. vi. p. 446), had quoted Ruskin's letter, and in
the following week's issue he discussed it (pp. 467-468). The brilliant style of
the early masters had been succeeded by "more modern analysts," and "Chess in
this respect is only taking the same course which all other branches of human
research and human skill have taken ever since Newton discovered the law of
gravity. It is the ' positive ' substance of a thing physical or moral which determines
its relative position in the order of things. No amount of imagination can for a
length of time sustain a fictitious value given to a body in nature or to a variation
in chess."]
575
(2)
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, July 2 [1884]. *
MY DEAR SIR, — I hope this letter will get to the post-office anyhow —
the fine weather puts us all off our work and letters !
Chess Monthly looks delightful, but couldn't you exist without Epps's
Cocoa on the top ! ?
Oh — I see you have delivered your work. I couldn't open parcel till
to-day.
Yours always,
J. R.
(3)
BRANTWOOD, July 4 [1884]. 2
DEAR MR. HOFFER, — So many thanks for your letter and the Field —
and the article beforehand. I am sure to be pleased both by it and its
English, but I've only begun saying what I have to say about the temper
of chess. I think, in general, great players should never give odds, but
openings, leaving weak points on purpose to show, or find, new forms of
the game, and should name the move after which they mean to play their
best ! Above everything, I want to know, in the great games, where
either of the players is first surprised. Andersen and Morphy seem to
me the only ones that never are — they only are beaten by getting tired
and making mistakes, or Morphy in trying a new opponent's style.
And I've ever so much more to say, but I want your letter, which I'm
sure will be in the best English — not so slovenly as our own.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. R.
(*)
28, HERNE HIIX, S.E., Whit Monday [1885], 8
DEAR MR. BIRD, — Everything that you send me about chess interests
me ; but I have no right to express any opinion on the relative value of
play, or to say more than that I congratulate you heartily on the variety,
and, as far as I can judge, brilliancy of your recorded victories, and that,
if only I had time to study your selections and notes with care, I should
indeed hope to be a chess-player in my old age. But in all notes on
1 [To Mr. L. Hoffer, editor of the Chess Monthly, as aforesaid, and author of
" Chess" in the Cyclopaedia of Curds and Games (1891). From the Chess Column
of the Westminster Gazette, January 27, 1900, where it is explained that "The
Chess Monthly — tastefully enough got up to satisfy even Mr. Ruskin — had an adver-
tisement on its cover which seems to have been an eyesore to him."]
2 [From the Chess Column of the Westminster Gazette, January 27, 1900.1
3 [From the Times, June 24, 1885. The letter was addressed to Mr. Bird,
the author of Chess Masterpieces and Modern Chess, in thanks for the volumes. For
another reference to him, see Ulric, Vol. XXXII. p. 492 n.]
576 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
chess that I ever read there is to my notion a want of care to point out
where the losing player first goes wrong. Often it is said, " Such a move
would be stronger," but scarcely ever why stronger, and no player ever
confesses by what move he was first surprised. You speak yourself some-
times of a move you regret, but not of an opponent's move that embar-
rassed you. And you know I am always pleading with you for a few
chosen exemplary games, in which the reason for every move might be
shown on both sides.
Believe me always, dear Mr. Bird, very gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
ART CRITICISM
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, October 21, 1884, thus introduced: "A series
of papers on journalism is being contributed by Mr. Arthur Reade to the Printing
Times. Asked what a country reporter, who had no special knowledge of art,
ought to do if sent to an art exhibition, Mr. Ruskin replied," etc.]
{October, 1884.]
Supposing — which I hope your question does suppose — the country re-
porter to be a man of natural sense and intelligence, the best thing he
can do is to describe carefully the subject of the pictures he thinks likely
to please simple people, if they are shown what is in them, and, as far
as the editor will allow him, to take no notice of pictures attracting
merely by their tricks of painting. I do not think the public value the
affectations of art knowledge in a newspaper reporter, but they would
always be grateful to him for the indication of elements of interest in a
picture which they would have missed without his help.
CHEAP BOOKS
[Reprinted in the Westminster Gazette, July 12, 1905, from the Great Central
Railway Journal. Ruskin's correspondent had written to complain of the price of
his books. Ruskin was staying at the time in Mr. Macdonald's house.]
84, WOODSTOCK ROAD, OXFORD, 4th Nov., '84.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have ordered my publisher to send you in gift a
book of mine you have not read. Be content with that, at present, and
Carlyle.
Have not you Shakespeare, cheap ? and the Bible, now-a-days for
nothing ? What good do they do you ?
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 577
STIPPLING
[From Bartolozzi and his Works, by Andrew W. Tuer (to whom the letter was
addressed) : Leadenhall Press, 2nd edition, 1885, p. 172 n. (The first edition had
been issued in 1882.) Reprinted in Igdrusil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 102, and
thence in Ruskiniana (No. 135}, part i., 1890, p. 115.]
BRANTWOOD, Dec. 16, 1884.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am obliged for your letter and engravings enclosed,
but the stipple in my plates is all Mr. Roffe's doing,1 contrary to my
reiterated request, and only permitted because Mr. Roffe facsimiles lines with
it in a dexterous way. I entirely disapprove of stippled plates.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
The Bartolozzi reached me safely, but I have no time to acknowledge
books sent me out of my own line. I see it is rising in price, and when
I come to it, with your good leave will return it, as it is of no use to
me, and I do not wish to deprive you of the profit due to so carefully
edited a work.
"WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE"
[Addressed to Lieut.-Colonel Alexander Fergusson, and printed by him at pp.
181-182 of his book, The Laird of Lag: a Life-Sketch (Edinburgh, 1886). The Laird
of Lag, Sir Robert Grierson (1655-1733), persecutor of the Covenanters, is the Sir
Robert Redgauntlet of Wandering Willie's Tale in Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet.
In another letter to Lieut.-Colonel Fergusson (p. 182) Ruskin wrote (10th November
1881) on the subject of dialect: "I will not believe in anything to match
< Willie's Tale.' "]
24th January, 1885.
I think the reason that everybody likes "Willie's Tale" is principally that
it is so short that they have time to read it, and so exciting all through
that they attend completely to it. The great works [of Scott] require far
closer attention in their intricate design 2 and beautifully quiet execution ;
and now-a-days nobody has leisure to understand anything, — they like to
have something to dream idly over — or rush through.
In the second place, it is all of Scott's best. Few of the novels are
without scenes either impossible to rational imagination, or a little padded
and insipid. Sydney Smith thus condemns the whole of The Pirate,3 and
I do not myself contend for the great leap out of the cave in Old Mortality,
1 [See, for instance, the frontispiece to Fors C/avigera, Letter 96 (Vol. XXIX.
p. 517), and to The Story of Ida (Vol. XXXII. p. 3).]
2 [On this point, compare Vol. XXIX. p. 265.]
3 [See the passage quoted by Ruskin in Fiction, Fair and Foul ; above, p. 290 n.]
578 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
the Bailie's battle or suspension in Rob Roy, or the caricature of Margaret's
father in Nigel. But every word of "Willie's Tale" is as natural as the
best of Burns, with a grandeur in the main scene equal to Dante — and
the waking by the gravestones in the dew is as probable as it is sweet
and skilful in composition. Nevertheless, the really fine and carefully
wrought pieces of the novels themselves go far beyond it — the end of Red-
gauntlet itself, for instance. ,
GORDON AND THE SOUDAN
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, February 20, 1885, where the letter was headed
tl Mr. Ruskin on the Situation." Reprinted in Igdrasil, October 1890, vol. ii. p. 12,
and thence in JRuskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 71-72 (No. 75).]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BRANTWOOD, Feb. 19 [1885].
SIR, — Would you please tell an innocent outsider, whom you are often
kind to, what on earth Mr. Punch means by talking about a "last rally"
and the like? or what folks in general mean by going about begging for
help from everybody, because we have lost a few good men and officers
in Africa, and, after dawdling for six months, been too late to save one
very perfectly good officer, whom, as far as I can make it out, Ministers
must have wanted to get rid of?2 As far as I have any opinion on the
matter myself, I entirely agree with the enclosed of M. de Lesseps, which
I found quoted in a country paper. Bah ! 3 last rally ! Good gracious ! did
all our colonies come offering to help us after the retreat to Corunna?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
M. DE LESSEPS ON THE SOUDAN
M. de Lesseps in the course of an interview related by the Paris Matin said :
" I have repeatedly warned the English that to send an expedition to the Soudan
was to send soldiers to certain death. As for ancient Nubia, or Ethiopia, it is a
country in which, as if in a sea, whole armies of conquerors have been engulfed.
Cambyses left 100,000 men on the deserts, and he was only too glad to return
home with a handful of followers. The son of Mehemet Ali was burned in his
camp, with his army. To attempt to conquer the Soudan by force is a dream.
It is quite possible to give laws to and to govern these intelligent, heroically brave
races. In order to reach Khartoum, whatever the route taken, one must cross deserts
in which there is absolutely no water. An army, whether going or returning, will
always be an easy prey to the warlike populations of Nubia. These can turn on
1 [The cartoon in the Punch of the week represented Mr. Gladstone as a warrior
on horseback, and surrounded by his colleagues, and was entitled "The Last Rally,"
in reference to the general election then imminent.]
2 [For other references to General Gordon, see Vol. XXXI. p. 386 n.]
• 3 [Misprint for "But" — see next letter.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 579
the enemy as many as 100,000 fighting men, for whom death is only a secondary
consideration, and who would be scoffed at by the women if they returned to their
villages without having avenged the deaths of their companions. The longer the
struggle is continued against the Soudan the more difficult will be the effecting
of a settlement. Two years ago it would have been easy to negotiate ; now it is
difficult, the animosity of these fanatical soldiers having been roused."
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, February 25, 1885. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October
1890, vol. ii. p. 13, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 72 (No. 76).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, February 24 [1885].
SIR, — Will you kindly correct the misprint of " Bah ! " for " but " in my
recent letter? I never have used this modern interjection, nor ever shall.
I should have written with less haste and more indignation had I conceived
the vileness possible in Englishmen of making the death of Gordon an
occasion of party contest. Censure, and alas ! praise, are alike too late.
The Opposition will not redeem the Government's errors by encumbering
its hands, and the Master of Balliol's sermon1 should have been preached
in the enthusiasm of sympathy with the living, not in encomium of the
dead. I am edified also by the burst of funeral music from the lips of
England in praise of Gordon's honour and faith, while she received for
thirty years, with rage and hissing, the words of the one man, now at rest
among his native hills,2 who told her that her merchants should be honest
and her statesmen sincere.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
USURY AND INTEREST
[This letter is communicated by Mr. T. Parton, to whom it was addressed.
Mr. Parton had been attending a course of lectures given in Manchester by Mr.
M. E. Sadler, who had stated that Ruskin did not condemn a moderate rate of
interest of money. Mr. Parton, as a reader of Fors, challenged the statement,
and wrote to Ruskin to ask who was right. For a note upon the development of
his views on the subject, see Vol. XVII. p. xcviii.]
BRANTWOOD, 10th March, '85.
Mv DEAR SIR, — I am extremely obliged by your letter, and more than
glad that people begin to care what I think or say.
When I wrote Unto this Last, and Munera, in I860 and 1862, I had
1 [Jowett's sermon on Gordon had been partly reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette
(from the Oxford Magazine}, February 20, 1885.]
* [Carlyle had been buried at his birthplace, Ecclcfechan, in February 1881.]
xxxiv. 2 o
580 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
not studied the subject of usury, and was under the usual impression that
moderate interest was harmless. It was Mr. Sillar who showed me the
truth — and in all my Fors teaching, Usury is blamed in its essence, — as
murder is — though the necessity of it for some time yet under existing
conditions is granted also as of War, — the members of the St. George's
Guild only vow to get quit of it as much and as soon as they can.
A pamphlet by Mr. Sillar is just coming out (with introduction by
me),1 of which the contents will I think surprise many.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
THE DESTRUCTION OF FOOTPATHS
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 26, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, July 1890,
vol. i. pp. 253-254, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 45-46 (No. 43).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, March 25th [1885].
SIR, — Will you kindly help me to direct general attention to the mis-
chief now continually done by new landowners in the closing of our moun-
tain footpaths ? The two contrary evils go on — each aiding and completing
the other. First, a railroad comes tearing a glen to pieces ; and then
a manufacturer comes to live beside it, who stops the footpath over the
hill — and where are you? We shall have nothing left soon but the rail-
way station and hotel garden to enjoy ourselves in. I have every right to
speak in the matter, for there are two open footpaths through my own
wood, coming out at my lodge door ; and I think of all the small, mean,
and wicked things a landlord can do, shutting his footpath is the nastiest.
We have got to fight a man between Windermere and Esthwaite just now
who wants to shut up one of the rarest views in Lancashire, and his
neighbours talk as if he had some chance of doing it too ! 2 Of course his
villagers dare not say a word for themselves, but every educated resident
in the country is as much interested in stopping these abuses as they are.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
MODERN ENGLISH SPORTS
[This letter was printed on p. ix. of a small volume entitled Modern English
Sports: their Use and Abuse. Dedicated by special permission to Professor Ruskin.
By Frederick Gale (The Old Buffer), Author of The Life of the Hon. Robert
1 [Usury and the English Bishops: see above, p. 443.]
8 [The footpath in question is from Sawrey Hill to Far Sawrey ; and it was
stated in the Pall Mall Gazette of April 7, 1885, that the landowner's application
to Quarter Sessions had been abandoned.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 581
Grimgton, etc., etc. London : Sampson Low & Co., 1885. The dedication is as
follows: "This book is specially dedicated by permission to Professor Raskin by
the Author, who has received more kindness at his hands than many volumes
could record. London : June 1885." Ruskin's letter was reprinted (with the mis-
print " marched " for " marvelled ") in Igdrasil, and thence (No. 57) in Ruskiniana,
part i., 1890, p. 58. For other references to Mr. Gale, see Vol. XXIX. p. 220 ;
and above, p. 342.]
CHISLEHURST, 5th June, 1885.
MY DEAR FREDERICK, — I am delighted by the dedication of your new
book to me, not only because it shows me that you have pleasure in my
sympathy, but also because I want people who care about my own books
to know that I can admire many things which I don't talk of. Only in
thanking you for this charming compliment, you must let me guard your
readers from imagining that I think exactly with you on all points. You
always do me good, whether in talking or writing, by showing me the
brightest side of what I may have seen mostly on the opposite one, by
your memorials of the frank hearts and cheerful ways of the country people
of half a century since, and your praise of frankness, cheerfulness, and sim-
plicity in all persons and at all times ; but 1 am not to be beguiled by
your description of the interest of honest villagers in the success of a pretty
and amiable horse, out of my general objections to horse-racing ; neither
by my joy in the " Lucas catch," which we marvelled at together, out of
my steady wish that schoolboys should learn skill in ploughing and sea-
manship rather than in cricket ; and that young ladies should often be sent
to help the cook and housemaid, when they would rather be playing tennis.
It seems to me also that you have not enough protested, in the name of
all sensible players, against the turning of any play into a laborious or
dangerous business. Only the other day Mr. Arthur Severn pointed out
to me, in a painting by old De Wint, that women and children were stand-
ing near the wickets. It seems to me cricket must have been in its true
zenith in the days when it commended itself to those gentle spectators,
and needed not warn them away.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
THE IRISH QUESTION
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, January 5, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October
1890, vol. ii. pp. 13-14, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 73 (No. 77).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, Jan. 4 [1886].
SIR, — In your recent articles on the Irish question you have taken no
notice of certain peculiarities of the Irish race which I imagine you know
as well as I do, and yet, by unlucky chance, you hitherto ignore them !
582 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Would it not be well to take some account of these following ineradicable
virtues of theirs in our schemes for their management ? First : they are
an artistic people, and can design beautiful things and execute them with
indefatigable industry. Secondly : they are a witty people, and can by
no means be governed by witless ones. Thirdly : they are an affectionate
people, and can by no means be governed on scientific principles, by heart-
less persons.
Permit me to observe further, that 'as Scott is the authority for Scotch
character, Maria Edgeworth is the authority for Irish ; and that her three
stories of Ormond, Ennui, and The Absentee contain more essential truths
about Ireland than can be learned from any other sources whatsoever.1
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS
[This and the two following letters first appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of
January 19, February 15, and February 23, 1886. They formed part of a discussion
on the question, Which are the best hundred books? started by the Pall Mall
Gazette in 1886. The original list was put forward by Sir John Lubbock in a
lecture at the Working Men's College. Ruskin's first two letters were reprinted
in the Pall Mall Gazette's "Best Hundred Books" Extra, 1886, pp. 7-9. His
emendations of Sir John's list were given by the Pall Mall in facsimile, and are
here so reproduced. The letters were reprinted in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890,
pp. 79-84 (Nos. 84-86), where the blottesque emendations were represented by
thick brackets [sic], and the lighter erasures by thin ones [sic\, while his additions
were given by italics. As some of the authors' names are not readily distinguish-
able, it may be said that under "History," Ruskin erased "Grote"; under
"Philosophy," "Mill," "Darwin," Adam "Smith," "Berkeley," "Descartes,"
"Locke," and "Lewes"; under "General Literature," "Hume," " Macaulay,"
" Emerson," " Goethe," and " Marivaux." For other references to Bacon's New
Atlantis, inserted by Ruskin in the list, see Vol. XVII. p. 282 ; Vol. XVIII.
pp. 513-514; Vol. XX. pp. 290, 367; and Vol. XXII. p. 206.]
(1)
BBANTWOOD, Jan. 13, 1886.
MY DEAR SIR, — Putting my pen lightly through the needless — and blot-
tesquely through the rubbish and poison of Sir John's list — I leave enough
for a life's liberal reading — and choice for any true worker's loyal reading.
I have added one quite vital and essential book — Livy (the two first books 2),
1 [Compare the similar remark in Fors Cluvigera, Letter 87 (Vol. XXIX. p. 363).
For Ruskin's numerous references to Miss Edgeworth, see the General Index.]
2 [For the importance attached by Ruskin to the first two books of Livy, see
Vol. XXIII. p. 370 ; Vol. XXXI. p. xiv. ; and Pratterita, i. § 167. For his numerous
references to the three plays of Aristophanes here mentioned, see the General Index ;
and for the Plutus, below, p. 688. For Humboldt, see again the General Index (and
compare, below, p. 606); for Forbes, Vol. XXVI. pp. xxxiii.-xl., 586, and also the
General Index.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
583
and three plays of Aristophanes (Clouds, Birds, and Plutus). Of travels I
read myself all old ones I can get hold of; of modern, Humboldt is the
central model. Forbes (James Forbes in Alps) is essential to the modern
Swiss tourist — of sense.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. R.
MSTS."
... •• An/lects."
" Eihiei."
" Koran."
voriON.
iKe^a collection.
" CAnfes«<>ns. "
. '/I impatient."
.../ " yensc-cs."
Jeremy Taylor!.. " Uoly Living
Dying."
rfiUtL i .... "C.I
Uunyan "Pilgrim's Progress."
Aristotle ...**•/ .. "Politics."
1'laio—
" and " Republic."
Demosthenes .............. " De Corona."
Plutarch
Horace
Cicero ... "Dc Ofificiis," " De Amicitia,"
and " De Senectutc."
Eric TOETKY.
Homer , " Iliad " and Odyssey."
Hesiod , "
Virgil
TT. "Alurie U'Attllur"
«N POKTr.Y
'»•' '^.arn.).^" (epi-
GREEK DRAMATISTS.
/F.»chylus... " Prometheus" «he
House
of Atreus" Trilogy, pr
—si.
HISTORY.
lletodolus •
Xcnophon "Anal si*
T hucyriidcs
Tacitus "Ccrmania
." Dec me and Tall "
^ailcsXn."or"Loui*XIV "
" Englatxj "
" Novuni Orgamini "
"Volilieal Economy "
• ««nr;ni^-i^;pccjej »
selection)
ruman
^urv sin
Understanding "
'History ol Philosophy "
TK^VEI.S.
" Voyages "
Shakspcare
Miliun
Dante
Spenser
Scott
Wordsworth
Pope
Goldsmith ............ "Vicar, of Wakefield *'
^*j**- .................. ''Gulliver's Travels'"
De'oe ••• ..... * ........ "Robinson Crusoe"
"Tlie Arabian Nights"
•• Johnson "
. Select \Vork»
Essayists :
A'ldison
NMHPk
Montaigne
Palt and Present " and'
" French 'Revolution "
MODfeRN I'JCTION.
Selectiops (!) from—
Dickens
««•,
rffffff
Scott
584 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
(2)1 [February, 1886.]
SIR, — Several points have been left out of consideration both by you
and by Sir John Lubbock, in your recent inquiries and advices concerning
books. Especially Sir John, in his charming description of the pleasures
of reading for the nineteenth century,2 leaves curiously out of mention
its miseries ; and among the various answers sent to the Pall Mall 1 find
nobody laying down, to begin with, any one canon or test by which a
good book is to be known from a bad one.
Neither does it seem to enter into the respondent minds to ask, in
any case, whom, or what the book is to be good for — young people or old,
sick or strong, innocent or worldly — to make the giddy sober, or the grave
gay. Above all, they do not distinguish between books for the labourer
and the schoolman ; and the idea that any well-conducted mortal life could
find leisure enough to read a hundred books would have kept me wholly
silent on the matter, but that I was fain, when you sent me Sir John's
list, to strike out, for my own pupils' sake, the books I would forbid them
to be plagued with.
For, of all the plagues that afflict mortality, the venom of a bad book to
weak people, and the charms of a foolish one to simple people, are with-
out question the deadliest ; and they are so far from being redeemed by
the too imperfect work of the best writers, that 1 never would wish to see
a child taught to read at all, unless the other conditions of its education
were alike gentle and judicious.3
And, to put the matter into anything like tractable order at all, you
1 [In an "Occasional Note" in the issue of the Pall Mall Gazette (February 15)
containing this article, it was stated that " The article was written for the Nineteenth
Century and was set up in type for it. The editor, however, wrote to Mr. Ruskin
begging him to strike out all references to the Gazette. Mr. Ruskin thereupon
wrote a letter in somewhat vigorous terms to the editor of the Nineteenth Century
and sent the article for publication in the Pall Mall Gazette."]
2 ["On the Pleasures of Reading," in the Contemporary Review, February 188(5,
vol. 49, pp. 240-251. This was the paper read at the Working Men's College, con-
taining the List of the Best Hundred Books (p. 251), which started the Pall Mall
Gazettes discussion. The paper begins thus : " Of all the privileges we enjoy in this
nineteenth century there is none, perhaps, for which we ought to be more thankful
than for tbe easier access to books." Later on, the author says (p. 244): "There
are of course some books which we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
But these are exceptions. As regards by far the larger number, it is probably
better to read them quickly." Ruskin's letters were widely noticed in the press,
and provoked some replies — e.g., in the New York Critic, May 1, 1886 ("Ruskin's
Judgment of Gibbon and Darwin," by John Burroughs), and in the New Englander
(New Haven), November 1886 ("Ruskin v. Gibbon and Grote," by G. Monroe
Royce. This second letter of Ruskin's also inspired an answer in verse to his
" studies in reviling and abusing" by Mr. William Watson ("To John of Brant-
wood. After reading a Letter, Pall Mall Gazette, February 15, 1886"). The poem
was printed on pp. 42-44 of WordswortKs Grave and Other Poems (Cameo Series,
1890), but was withdrawn from later collections of the poet's works. The Pall Mall
Gazette returned to the subject on June 4, 1904, and published "Lord Avebury's
New List," with a letter reviewing the controversy. He now included Ruskin
among his hundred, and with regard to Ruskiu's " blottesque emendations," " could
not but believe that he would have himself on further reflection modified his views."]
3 [On this subject, compare Vol. XXVII. p. Ixii.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 585
must first separate the scholar from the public. A well-trained gentleman
should, of course, know the literature of his own country, and half a dozen
classics thoroughly, glancing at what else he likes ; but, unless he wishes
to travel or to receive strangers, there is no need for his troubling him-
self with the languages or literature of modern Europe. I know French
pretty well myself. I never recollect the gender of anything, and don't
know more than the present indicative of any verb ; but with a dictionary
I can read a novel, — and the result is my wasting a great deal of time
over Scribe, Dumas, and Gaboriau, and becoming a weaker and more
foolish person in all manner of ways therefor. French scientific books are,
however, out and out the best in the world ; and, of course, if a man
is to be scientific, he should know both French and Italian. The best
German books should at once be translated into French, for the world's
sake, by the French Academy ; — Mr. Lowell is altogether right in point-
ing out that nobody with respect for his eyesight can read them in the
original.
I have no doubt there is a great deal of literature in the East, in
which people who live in the East, or travel there, may be rightly in-
terested. I have read three or four pages of the translation of the Koran,
and never want to read any more ; the Arabian Nights many times over,
and much wish, now, I had been better employed.
As for advice to scholars in general, I do not see how any modest
scholar could venture to advise another. Every man has his own field,
and can only by his own sense discover what is good for him in it. I
will venture, however, to protest, somewhat sharply, against Sir John's per-
mission to read any book fast. To do anything fast — that is to say, at a
greater rate than that at which it can be done well — is a folly : but of all
follies reading fast is the least excusable. You miss the points of a book
by doing so, and misunderstand the rest.
Leaving the scholar to his discretion, and turning to the public, they
fall at first into the broad classes of workers and idlers. The whole body of
modern circulating library literature is produced for the amusement of the
families so daintily pictured in Punch — mama lying on a sofa showing her
pretty feet — and the children delightfully teazing the governess, and nurse,
and maid, and footman — the close of the day consisting of state-dinner
and reception. And Sir John recommends this kind of people to read
Homer, Dante, and Epictetus ! Surely the most beneficent and innocent
of all books yet produced for them is the Book of Nonsense, with its
corollary carols ? — inimitable and refreshing, and perfect in rhythm. I
really don't know any author to whom I am half so grateful, for my idle
self, as Edward Lear.1 I shall put him first of my hundred authors.
Then there used to be Andersen ! 2 but he has been minced up, and
1 [For other references to him, see Vol. II. p. xxv. ; Vol. IV. p. 237 ; and
Vol. XXV. p. 142.]
1 [For another reference to him, see Vol. XXXIII. p. 447. In one of Ruskin's
diaries, there is the following entry : —
" Sept. 8, 1856, St. Laurent.— Wet all day. Read Andersen's tales.
There is a strange mingling of false sentiment, unchildlike, with their
delicate fancy and wit : too much of rose-bowers and crystal palaces,
prettily heaped together, but without detail of fact and bearing on the
586 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
washed up, and squeezed up, and rolled out, till one knows him no
more. Nobody names him, of the omnilegent judges : but a pure edition
of him gaily illustrated, would be a treasure anywhere — perhaps even to
the workers, whom it is hard to please.
But I did not begin this talk to recommend anything, but to ask you
to give me room to answer questions, of which I receive many by letter,
why I effaced such and such books from Sir John's list.
1. Grate's History of Greece. — Because there is probably no commercial
establishment, between Charing Cross and the Bank, whose head clerk
could not write a better one, if he had the vanity to waste his time on it.1
2. Confessions of St. Augustine. — Because religious people nearly always
think too much about themselves; and there are many saints whom it is
much more desirable to know the history of. St. Patrick to begin with —
especially in present times.2
3. John Stuart Mill. — Sir John Lubbock ought to have known that his
day was over.
4. Charles Kingsley. — Because his sentiment is false and his tragedy
frightful. People who buy cheap clothes are not punished in real life by
catching fevers ; social inequalities are not to be redressed by tailors fall-
ing in love with bishops' daughters,8 or gamekeepers with squires' ; and
the story of Hypatia is the most ghastly in Christian tradition, and should
for ever have been left in silence.
5. Darwin. — Because it is every man's duty to know what he is, and
not to think of the embryo he was, nor the skeleton that he shall be.
Because, also, Darwin has a mortal fascination for all vainly curious and
idly speculative persons, and has collected, in the train of him, every
impudent imbecility in Europe, like a dim comet wagging its useless tail
of phosphorescent nothing across the steadfast stars.
6. Gibbon. — Primarily, none but the malignant and the weak study the
Decline and Fall either of State or organism. Dissolution and putrescence
are alike common and unclean in all things ; any wretch or simpleton may
observe for himself, and experience himself, the processes of ruin ; but
good men study and wise men describe, only the growth and standing of
things, — not their decay.
For the rest, Gibbon's is the worst English that was ever written by
an educated Englishman. Having no imagination and little logic, he is
alike incapable either of picturesqueness or wit : his epithets are malicious
without point, sonorous without weight, and have no office but to make a
flat sentence turgid.4
story. On the whole I am disappointed in him. The Ugly Duck is
perfect. The 'Fat Needle' very good. Nearly all the others, too much of
opera nymph in them, and of pure ugliness and painfulness — the princess
making the nettle-shirts, and the grand Klaus, killing his nurse, and
many other such pieces quite spoiling the tone of the book for me."]
1 [For Grote, the banker-historian, whose book Ruskin at once used and abused,
see Vol. XX. p. 381, and Vol. XVIII. p. xxxiv.]
2 [Compare the letter headed "The Life of St. Patrick," below, p. 592.]
3 [See Alton Locke (it was, however, a Dean's daughter, not a bishop's) ; and, for
the gamekeeper in love with the squire's daughter, Yeast. On Hypatia, compare
the letter on Kingsley, below, p. 609.]
4 [For other criticisms of Gibbon's style, see Vol. XXXIII. pp. 73, 74, 75.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 587
7. Voltaire. — His work is, in comparison with good literature, what
nitric acid is to wine, and sulphuretted hydrogen to air. Literary chemists
cannot but take account of the sting and stench of him ; but he has no
place in the library of a thoughtful scholar. Every man of sense knows
more of the world than Voltaire can tell him ; and what he wishes to
express of such knowledge he will say without a snarl.
I cannot here enter into a very grave and wide question which neither
the Pall Mall nor its respondents ask, respecting literature for the young,
but will merely point out one total want in the present confused supply
of it — that of intelligible books on natural history. I chanced at break-
fast the other day, to wish to know something of the biography of a
shrimp, the rather that I was under the impression of having seen jump-
ing shrimps on a sandy shore express great satisfaction in their life.
My shelves are loaded with books on natural history, but I could find
nothing about shrimps except that " they swim in the water, or lie upon
the sand in shoals, and are taken in multitudes for the table." l
JOHN RUSKIN.
(3)
[February, 1886.]
I can only give brief reply to your correspondents' questions — full reply
would mean the writing of another Sesame. I take them in their order.
Page 2, in your issue of the 17th. Mr. J. P. Owen.2 Many thanks
for reference to "the continual feast of a boy of eleven"; but Mr.
Owen's quotation from it does not answer my question ; nor do I know
from what passage in my letter Mr. Owen gathered that I had never
been fortunate enough to meet with a shrimp alive.
Same page. Mr. Andrew Wilson 3 may perhaps be in the habit of saying
he has seen things when he is only " under an impression " of having
done so. I am not ; and will thank him, if ever he quotes again letter
or book of mine, to quote with precision. My acquaintance with works
on zoology does not indeed extend to those of Mr. Wilson ; — but of the
lessons in filth, folly, and cruelty, which form the staple of modern popular
books on natural history, my forty years' study of woodcutting has probably
1 [Put together from pp. 257, 258 of Thomas Bell's History of the British Stalk-
Eyed Crustacea, 1853.]
1 [Mr. Owen wrote : " I venture to commend to Mr. Ruskin's notice an easily
accessible, most useful, and — teate a boy of eleven, who finds it a continual feast —
deeply interesting publication called Chambers's Encyclopaedia, in vol. viii. of which,
under the article ' Shrimps,' he will find the following : ' The colours [of the
shrimp] are such that the creature may readily escape observation, whether resting
on a sandy bottom or swimming through the water. The quick, darting movements
of shrimps, like short leaps, however, betray them to any one who looks attentively
into a pool left by the retiring tide on a sandy shore.'"]
* [Mr. Wilson (of Edinburgh) wrote to say (inter alia) that "the animals which
Mr. Ruskin saw swimming on the sea-shore, 'jumping' to express 'great satisfaction,'
etc., were not shrimps at all, but sand-hoppers, which are poor relations of the
shrimp kind.'' Mr. Wilson added that, as himself a writer of books on natural
history for the young, he thought Mr. Ruskin's complaint of the dearth of such
books was an unjustifiable grumble.]
588 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
given me wider experience than his. The sentence for which he asks my
authority is from Bell's British Crustacea; and it is indeed accompanied
with details respecting the shrimp's carapace, abdomen, and rudimentary
thumb, for which it was unnecessary to ask space in your columns.
Page 2. February 18. T. F. W.1 Faust never will be out of date:
but it is both frightful and grievous in tragedy, to all sensitive persons (in
my own life, for instance, it is a fixed horror and sorrow).2 To the general
public, it is a mere story of necromancy, seduction, and murder, in which
they indulge as they do in other vicious excitements ; to the real student,
it is a poem of immense complexity and difficulty — on which his labour is
misspent. The waste of time, money, and genius which it has caused in
European society since its first presentation on the stage is beyond all
calculation. Wilhelm Meister is in the same group of work. Carlyle could
get good of it, — but got more harm, of which I cannot speak here.
Page 4 of the same issue. The letter from "A Mother" is the most
valuable you have printed ; — the real question is — not what books we give
children to read, but how we train them to the reading. I have before
now said that a good girl may be set free in her father's library ; 8 — a
clever boy may be so in any library ; and I notice the letter chiefly to
deprecate the writer's dread of either Dickens or Marryat. There is more
vital amusement in them for young people than in any other books what-
ever, and I should make Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, and Mr. Midshipman
Easy, staple of boys' libraries, together with the two beautiful novels of
Cooper named by Mr. Wilkic Collins4 — The Deer Slayer and Pathfinder.^
(Incidentally — let me say — of all writers whatsoever of any people or
language, I should most strictly forbid Thackeray.6) Some day I may try
to arrange a library for young people, — and meant to have done so long
since — it was not so easy as I thought.7 But, to end as usefully as I can,
let me say simply that the main use of books to the young is to acquaint
them with noble and pleasant people, whether historical or fancied ; and
to form their own taste for tranquil and useful life. Give them Scott
(excluding Kenilworth, St. Ronan's, The Bride of Lammermoor, and of course
Castle Dangerous and the others written in his last illness) ; all Miss
Edgeworth ; Sir Charles Grandison, The Spectator, Idler, Rambler; — The
Vicar of Wakefidd and Citizen of the World; — Mdme. de Genlis's Tales
of the Castle, Gotthelfs Tour de Jacob and Ulric le Fermier;s and the rest
may be left to their discretion.
1 [Asking what was Mr. Ruskin's objection to Fattst, and saying, "Surely it is
not out of date, not false in sentiment, nor frightful in tragedy" — expressions which
Ruskin had used in explaining his exclusion of other authors.]
2 [For other allusions to Faust and Wilhelm Meister, see Vol. V. p. 330 ».]
1 [See S&tame and Lilies, $ 78 (Vol. XVIII. p. 130).]
4 [In a letter in the Pall Mall Gazette of February 11 : see -pp. 12, 13 of The
Best Hundred Boohs.]
5 [For other references to Marryat, see Praterita, i. §§ 118, 227 ; and to Cooper,
Vol. 1. p. 569 n.1
' [For Ruskin s criticism of Thackeray, see above, p. 72 ; Vol. XVIII. p. 130 ;
Vol. XXVII. p. 562 ; and Vol. XXVIII. p. 548.]
7 [For other mention of this intention, see Vol. XXXIII. pp. 335-336.]
8 [For Ruskiu's notices of the various books arid authors here mentioned, see
the General Index.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 589
ADVICE TO A READER
[From the Young Man, September 1894, in an article on " All-round Culture,"
by the Rev. C. Silvester Home, who had written to Ruskiu in expostulation at
his striking out Emerson from the list of the Best Hundred Books : see above,
p. 582. Ruskin, however, quotes Emerson sometimes : see, for instance, Sesame
and Lilies, § 25 (Vol. XVIII. p. 77).]
[1886.]
Read me or any other author whom you can trust for what you under-
stand in us ; and what you don't, leave alone ; but don't doubt or dispute
because you are puzzled. We can help you in whatever you are capable
of doing well ; and you had better not try to do anything else.
"MR RUSKIN'S VIEWS"
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 19, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September
1890, vol. i. p. 345, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 63 (No. 60). The
"sentimental friends" were the admirers of Ruskin who had presented him with
a Congratulatory Address on Christmas Day 1885 (see below, p. 733). The Tele-
graph, being misinformed on the subject, published a leading article, three weeks
after the event, referring to " the movement now on foot for the presentation of
an address to Mr. Ruskin." It continued : " A rumour was current some little
while ago to the effect that the proposed testimonial was to take the form of a
tribute of gratitude to the great writer for his contributions to the study of the
social questions of the day ; but, if that idea were ever entertained, it has been
very wisely abandoned. . . . No man would more readily grant that his warmest
admirers must find it impossible to signify their adhesion to all his tenets, because
no man has with a more amazing candour confessed that he has not adhered to
all his tenets himself. He has seen reason as time has gone on to revise, and in
some instances altogether to renounce, doctrines which he had with more or less
force of conviction laid down at early periods of his career." Another leading
article in the same issue of the Telegraph discussed the bad quality of English
butter ; while a paragraph on the same page announced from Aldershot that the
bayonets of the infantry battalions were being tested " with startling results."]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
January 16th [1886].
SIR, — I am not ungrateful for the kindness of your notice of my senti-
mental friends in your issue of the 14th inst., but must pray your cor-
rection of the false impression which your article would convey to many
readers of my having altered my views on Political Economy. The changes
of " doctrine " to which you refer have been merely whether students
should draw on grey paper or white, and the like ; my political teaching
has never changed in a single word or thought, and, being that of Homer
and Plato,1 is little likely to do so, though not acceptable to the wisdom of a
country whose milkmaids cannot make butter nor her blacksmiths bayonets.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
1 [Compare above, p. 547.]
590 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
MODERN EDUCATION
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 17, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, August
1890, vol. i. pp. 297-298, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 51-62 (No. 48).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, March 16 [1886].
SIR, — Will you permit me in your columns to ask the editor of the
Spectator,1 with reference to the article on education in his last Saturday's
issue, whether he has ever chanced to notice anything that either Mr.
Thomas Carlyle or I, his pupil, have written on the subject during the last
thirty years? and farther, what he, the said editor, understands by the
term " education " ? I know of nothing that has been taught the youth
of our time, except that their fathers were apes, and their mothers winkles ;
that the world began in accident, and will end in darkness ; that honour
is a folly, ambition a virtue, charity a vice, poverty a crime, and rascality
the means of all wealth and the sum of all wisdom. Both Mr. Carlyle and
I knew perfectly well all along what would be the outcome of that educa-
tion. And I should be extremely glad to know what else was expected
from it by the members of the School Board.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RESULTS
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 25, 1886 (under the heading " By Ear or
Eye"). Reprinted in Igdrasil (as above), pp. 298-299, and in Ruskiniana, part i.,
pp. 52-53 (No. 49).]
BRANTWOOD, March 24, 1886.
SIR, — I cannot - look at papers in the morning, or they put me off
my day's work ; so that I did not see Mr. Walter Crane's letter till
late last night.2 As it chanced, I had been a good part of the afternoon
listening outside the drawing-room door to Mrs. Severn teaching her two
younger children to sing " I had a little nut-tree " and " I saw three
ships " — out of Mr. Walter Crane's Baby's Opera ; 8 her two scholars being
1 [The Spectator of March 13 contained a paper on Education and Discontent,
in which it was asked why the results of modern education were so disappointing.
Ruskin's letter was printed in the Pall Mall under the title " What are our children
learning?"]
a [Mr. Crane's letter, published in the Pall Mall Gazette of March 22 under the
heading "Out of the Mouth of Babes," began with the remark, "Mr. Ruskin's
brilliant hand-grenade, flung into the burning question of elementary education,
is calculated to astonish those whose general impression of the results and effects
of the mixture called education is much less direct." After some observations on
Ruskin's caricature of the Darwinian view of the descent of man, Mr. Crane went
on to argue that the eye was the "chief organ for the reception of ideas."]
8 [The Baby's Opera. A Book of Old Rhymes with New Dresses. "I saw three
ships come sailing" is on p. 18; "1 had a little nut tree," on p. 44.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 591
Baby himself (just three), at present Master of the house, and Violet,
two years older.
Mr. Crane will not, I hope, think me ungrateful for his pretty book,
and the many happy hours it has given us all, if I venture to observe
to him that the two scholars were learning much more by the ear than
the eye ; that children, till they have been very seriously taught to look
at things, usually do so; and that, broadly speaking, well-bred children
learn through every bit of their bodies — by their eyes, their ears, their lips,
their tongues, — and their Skins first of all, in having the said bodies daily
washed with pure water, and thrashed — delicately — on due occasion. But
that, above, all, they learn with their hearts and consciences ; and that the
reality of Christening is not " calling the pretty baby names " at a passing
moment, nor choking it with a sudden charity of a cup of cold water in
its face, but resolutely seeing that, till it reach years of discretion, it has
its heart sprinkled from an evil conscience.1 And for other education, as
I have no time to write further on the matter to-day, — will you allow
me, Mr. Editor, space for three passages from Evelyn's Diary, which suffi-
ciently explain by example what Mr. Carlyle and I mean by the word ?
They must be in your full-size print, please ; 2 and so I remain, your faith-
ful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
I. — WELL EDUCATED CHILDREN IN 1686
"I went this evening to see the order of the boys and children at Christ's
Hospital. There were neere 800 boys and girls so decently clad, cleanly lodg'd,
so wholesomly fed, so admirably taught, some the mathematics, especially the 40
of the late King's foundation, that I was delighted to see the progresse some little
youths of 13 and 14 yeares of age had made. I saw them at supper, visited their
dormitories, and much admir'd the order, oeconomy, and excellent government of
this most charitable seminary. Some are taught for the universities, others design'd
for seamen — all for trades and callings. The girles are instructed in all such worke
as becomes their sex and may fit them for good wives, mistresses, and to be a
blessing to their generation. They sung a psalme before they sat downe to supper
in the greate hall, to an organ which play'd all the time, with such cheerfull
harmony that it seem'd to me a vision of angels. I came from the place with
infinite satisfaction, having never seene a more noble, pious and admirable charity.
All these consisted of orphans onely."
II. — A WELL EDUCATED GREAT LADY IN 1688
"The house, or rather palace, at Althorp, ... is situate in the midst of a garden,
exquisitely planted and kept, and all this in a parke wall'd in with hewn stone,
planted with rows and walkes of trees, canals and fish-ponds, and stor'd with game.
And what is above all this, govern'd by a lady, who without any show of solicitude,
keepes every thing in such admirable order, both within and without, from the
garret to the cellar, that I do not believe there is any in this nation, or in any
other, that exceedes her in such exact order, without ostentation, but substantially
greate and noble. The meanest servant is lodg'd so neate and cleanly ; the service
at the several tables, the good order and decency — in a word, the intire oeconomy
is perfectly becoming a wise and noble person."
1 [Hebrews x. 22.]
1 [Space and uniformity forbid this here. The extracts are from the Diary of
(i.) March 10, 1686-1687 ; (ii.) August 18 ; (iii.) October 26.]
592 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
III. — A WELL EDUCATED POOR GIRL IN 1G85
" There was amongst them a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poore
labouring man, who had sustain'd her parents (sometime since dead) by her labour,
and has for many years refus'd marriage, or to receive any assistance from the
parish, besides ye little hermitage my lady gives her rent-free ; she lives on foure
pence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she abounds and can give almes
to others, living in greate humility and content, without any apparent affectation
or singularity ; she is continually working, praying, or reading, gives a good account
of her knowledge in religion, visites the sick ; is not in the least given to talke ;
very modest, of a simple not unseemly behaviour ; of a comely countenance, clad
very plain, but cleane and tight."
THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK
[From the Patt Matt Gazette, April 5, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, November
1890, vol. ii. p. 63, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 91 (No. 95).]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BRANTWOOD, April 2 [1886].
SIR, — My Irish servant,1 to whom I owe my life many times over, for the
care he has taken of me in most dangerous illness, read to me last night
your complaint that there was no good history of St. Patrick.2
Taking no notice at the time (for we were both tired), I asked him
this morning what he himself knew of St. Patrick. To my surprise he
gave me a quite clear abstract of what is usefully to be remembered by
everybody — Irish, Scotch, or French — concerning the first great preacher to
the Celtic race. Cross-examining him, I found he was so glib about it be-
cause he had just read the account of St. Patrick given by Mr. Thomas
Sherlock in the March number of the Catholic Fireside. It is an absurd
account, illustrated by a still more absurd picture, in which St. Patrick's
power over the hagworm (if he had it) is confused with St. Michael's vic-
tory over the Devil. And the article is full of weak sentiment and reckless
exaggeration ; — but the material facts in it are true, and may be thence
learnt, much to his advantage, by any ordinary English reader hitherto
unaware of them.
For those who can read French, and care to get a good scholar's view
of the matter, Montalembert's chapters on St. Columba, St. Columban,
and St. Patrick3 are altogether the best reading, out of whatever hundred
books they like, which they could possibly set themselves to, — in the
present entirely beautiful, but somewhat critical, condition of the British
Parliamentary mind.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [The Irish servant was Peter Baxter, who came to Ruskin over thirty years
ago, and is still (1908) a valued member of the Brantwood household.]
* [The Pall Mall Gazette of March 31 (referring to Ruskin's previous letter,
above, p. 586) had said : " Mr. Ruskin says we need only read the life of St. Patrick,
but there is no life of him worth reading."]
8 [Les Moines d Occident: St. Columba is the subject of Book xi. vol. iii. pp. 101-
331 ; St. Columban and St. Patrick, of Book vii. vol. ii. pp. 409-580.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 598
KEEPING ONE'S MONEY
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, April 21, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September
1890, vol. i. p. 348, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 66 (No. 66).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BBANTWOOD, April 20 [1886].
SIR, — I observe you have been enriching your columns lately with the
wisdom of experience, touching the difficulty of doing any good by giving
away your money. It happens, however, at this moment that I don't
want to give away any of mine ; and what I want to be told is how I
am to do any good by keeping it. Would you mind asking that for me?1
Ever your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
WASTING IT
[From the Globe, May 20, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil (as above) and thence
in Buskiniana (No. 67).]
BRANTWOOD, May 18 [1886].
SIR, — I entirely approve of the object of the Funeral Reform Associa-
tion, but if I could stop people from wasting their money while they are
alive, they might bury themselves how they like for aught I care.
Faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE BIBLE
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, April 27, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, November
1890, vol. ii. pp. 57-58, and thence in Ruskinianu, part i., 1890, pp. 84-85 (No. 87).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, St. Mark's Day, 1886 (Easter Sunday).
SIR, — Will you allow me, rather from Venice, in thought, than from
poor little Brantwood, in body, to send you one quite serious word, for
the close of my part in your book discussion?
I see, in your columns, as in other literary journals, more and more
buzzing and fussing about what M. Renan has found the Bible to be or
Mr. Huxley not to be, or the Bishops that it might be, or the School
Board that it mustn't be, etc., etc., etc.
Let me tell your readers who care to know, in the fewest possible words,
what it w.a It is the grandest group of writings existent in the rational
world, put into the grandest language of the rational world in the first
strength of the Christian faith, by an entirely wise and kind saint, St.
Jerome ; translated afterwards with beauty and felicity into every language
of the Christian world ; and the guide, since so translated, of all the arts
and acts of that world which have been noble, fortunate, and happy.
1 [A question which Ruskin had asked long before : see For» Clavigera, Letter 4
(VoL XXVII. p. 66).]
1 [Compare the Bible of Amien*, § 51 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 118).]
594 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
And by consultation of it honestly, on any serious business, you may
always learn — a long while before your Parliament finds out — what you
should do in such business, and be directed perhaps besides to work more
serious than you had thought of.
For instance, I meant this morning only to have written some auto-
biography ; but as it was St. Mark's Day, reading his first chapter, it struck
me, if perchance anybody in this pious nation, proposing this year to effect
sundry changes in its hitherto all-vaunted Constitution, wished in their
Easter holidays to baptize themselves, confessing their sins, and abjuring
them in a cheerful and hopeful manner — what sort of streams could they
find to baptize themselves in, near most country towns?
I observe, Sir, you have complimented our — for the time reposing — Par-
liament on its hitherto devotion to business. I have not myself noticed
much that it has done to any purpose, except virtually abolishing the Act
against pollution of rivers.1 Which repentance of theirs virtually signifies
that the management of the millennium we have presently to look to is
to be put in the hands of the sort of British patriot who is ready to poison
the air, and the wells, for his neighbours, a hundred miles round, and to
sit himself all his life up to his throat in a jakes, so only that he may
lick up lucre from the bottom of it.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
A CHRISTIAN'S DUTY
[From the Scotsman, April 21, 1900. The letter, as there stated, " was written
to a Scottish clergyman about the time when Home Rule for Ireland was beginning
to be seriously discussed, and was in answer to a question as to the bearing which
Vaticanism, as previously exposed by Mr. Gladstone [in his pamphlet of 1874, The
Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance], might have on the safety and
advisability of carrying out Home Rule proposals."]
BRANTWOOD, 6th May, '86.
SIR, — I did not reply to your first letter, because its question was
absurd. What Vaticanism or Protestantism may do is none of your, or
any other Christian soul's, business. A Christian man's duty is to mind
his own business — that which is under his hand and eye — and simply to
be kind when he is in power, and patient when he is in subjection.
Your faithful servt.,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE CRIME OF DEBT
[This letter — written by Ruskin in reply to a circular asking him to subscribe
to pay off the debt upon Duke Street Chapel, Richmond, S.W. — is from the Pall
Mall Gazette, June 9, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September 1890, vol. i. p. 348,
and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 66 (No. 68). The letter was again
1 [On March 16, 1886, the second reading of a "Rivers Purification Bill" was
moved by Sir Edward Birkbeck. It was opposed by Sir Henry Roscoe on the
f round that it might interfere unduly with manufactures. Mr. Chamberlain (Presi-
ent of the Local Government Board) took the same line, and the Bill was thrown
out without a division.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 595
reprinted in the Strand Magazine, December 1895, p. 679, in an article on "The
Handwriting of John Ruskin," by J. Holt Schooling, who says: "The recipient of
this unique letter promptly sold it for a guinea, and so got something towards
the debt on his iron chapel, which chapel, by the way, is about a hundred yards
from the window where I sit writing ; it is now a solid building of brick and
stone." A correspondent (the Rev. J. J. Ellis) having doubted the authenticity of
the letter, Ruskin replied : —
"BRANTWOOD, 14th June, 1886.
" MY DEAR SIR, — The letter is every word mine — more mine than those
I write for publication, in which I check my temper. I should say exactly
the same of the Nonconformist or any body of chapel-builders. Christ
bids them pray and give alms. He never bids them build synagogues, or
tells them to pray in those they had.
"Ever faithfully yours,
" JOHN RUSKIN."
This second letter appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, June 17, 1886 ; reprinted in
Igdrasil (as above) and Ruskiniana (No. 69). To another correspondent who, doubt-
ing that Ruskin had really written the letter, was " irresistibly impelled " to write
to him to ask if it was genuine, Ruskin sent the following reply : —
"You had better resist your impulsions, and use your common sense.
No one who has the slightest understanding of my books need doubt that
letter."]
BRANTWOOD, May 19, 1886.
SIR, — I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in
the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing ! My first word
to all men and boys who care to hear me is "Don't get into debt.
Starve and go to heaven — but don't borrow. Try first begging — I don't
mind if it's really needful — stealing ! But don't buy things you can't pay
for ! " And of all manner of debtors pious people building churches they
can't pay for, are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach
and pray behind the hedges — or in a sandpit — or a coalhole — first? And
of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the
damnablest to me. And of all the sects of believers in any ruling spirit
— Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolaters, and Mumbo Jumbo, Log and Fire
Worshippers — who want churches, your modern English Evangelical sect
is the most absurd, and entirely objectionable and unendurable to me !
All which they might very easily have found out from my books — any
other sort of sect would ! — before bothering me to write it to them.
Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
DARWINISM
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, May 25, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, December
1890, vol. ii. pp. 103-104, and thence in Ruskiniana, 1890, part i., pp. 116-117 (No.
139). The Gazette in its "Literary Notes" of May 21 had said: "Mr. Ruskiu
excluded Darwin's works from The Best Hundred Books, because he thinks it our
xxxiv. 2 P
596 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
duty to know what we are, and not to trouble ourselves about the embryos we were.
What, then, will Mr. Ruskin say when he learns that a nice little legacy of
some £15,000 has been left to the Jena University to be applied in Zoological
research on the basis of Darwin's evolution theory? The testator is Herr Paul
von Hitter, of Basle, who believes the teaching of Darwin to be the greatest
sign of progress which the century has yet given."]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BRANTWOOD, May 24 [1886].
SIR, — If you think your readers would really care to know " what Mr.
Ruskin will say " of Herr Paul von Hitter's legacy to Jena, announced in
your issue of the 21st — he says that the Herr is twice a simpleton — first
for his faith in Darwin — and secondly for his faith in the University of
Jena, or any other, teaching anything nowadays but what the public
want of it.
I take the chance you give me of adding this farther word to what
I before said 1 of Darwin's theory. It is mischievous, not only in looking
to the past germ instead of the present creature, — but looking also in the
creature itself — to the Growth of the Flesh instead of the Breath of the
Spirit. The loss of mere happiness, in such modes of thought, is incalcu-
lable. When I see a girl dance, I thank Heaven that made her cheerful
as well as graceful ; and envy neither the science nor sentiment of my
Darwinian friend, who sees in her only a cross between a Dodo and a
Daddy-long-legs.
I am, Sir, your-faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
NATIONAL PENANCE
[From the Times, June 1, 1886. The letter was addressed to a North Wales
correspondent with reference to Mr. Gladstone's proposed Irish measures, and
published in the Times in the same column with and just under an article on the
Political Situation. The letter was reprinted in Igdrasil, October 1890, vol. ii.
p. 14, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 73 (No. 78).]
BRANTWOOD, 29th May [1886].
DEAR SIR, — Nothing that any Parliament could do would be of the
least use at present. England and Ireland must suffer for their past sins.
How long, and to what issue, Heaven only knows.
Your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
[In one of the letters on the Best Hundred Books ; above, p. 586.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 597
A POLITICAL IDEAL
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, July 2, 1886 (in an article entitled " Mr. Ruskin's
Politics"). Reprinted in Igdrasil, October 1890, vol. ii. p. 14, and thence in
Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 73-74 (No. 79). The "inquiry" was that of a
gentleman from Pollokshields as to whether Ruskin approved of the use made by
political parties of his comments on Mr. Gladstone in Fors Clavigera, 1875, p. 248
(first edition), and Arrows of the Chace, ii. 284: see now Vol. XXVIII. p. 403 n.,
and above, pp. 548-549.]
BRANTWOOJ>, June 26, 1886.
In reply to your inquiry of the 25th I can only tell you that I have
other things to do than to watch how my words are used, whether at Pollok-
shields or elsewhere, so long as they are quoted accurately. Which in this
instance they are, to a syllable. But if in connection with them you will
favour me by circulating, also quoted accurately to a syllable, the passage
closing Part III. of my book called A Knight's Faith, from A, p. 248, to the
end,1 in the book forwarded to you by this post, any careful reader of that
passage need not afterwards either misunderstand or misapply any other
words of mine which may chance to get abroad at this political juncture.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
UNOBJECTIONABLE THEFT
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, June 28, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September
1890, vol. i. p. 349, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 67 (No. 7()).j
BRANTWOOD, June 27 [1886].
SIR, — You would wonder how many people have written to me from
the neighbourhood of Sherwood Forest, and that of the Clachan of Aber-
foil,2 to express their surprise that I don't object to thieving!8 Well, I
do object to some sorts of it, but one can't speak all one's mind to Mr.
Spurgeon in ten minutes. I don't object to Orlando's coming in with his
sword drawn and telling the Duke he shan't have any of his own dinner
till Adam is served.4 But I do extremely object to Mr. Forster's breaking
into my own Irish servant's house,6 robbing him of thirteen pence weekly
out of his poor wages,6 and, besides, carrying off his four children for slaves
half the day to play tunes on Wandering Willie's fiddle, instead of being
about their father's business.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [So marked by Ruskin in the copy sent. The passage is from " You have
seen a course of actions" to "Thy people shall be my people and thy God my
God " : see Vol. XXXI. pp. 505, 606.]
2 [References, of course, to Robin Hood (Ivanhoe) and Rob Roy.]
* [See above, in the letter on "The Crime of Debt." Mr. Spurgeon is here
taken as typical of "the modern English Evangelical sect."]
4 As You Like It, Act ii. sc. 7.]
8 For the Irish servant, see above, p. 592.]
' 'For other reference to W. E. Forster's compulsory Education Act of 1870, see
Vol. XVIII. p. 503, Vol. XXVII. p. 39.]
598
RUSKIN'S ILLNESSES
[From the Glasgow Evening News, January 30, 1900. The correspondent's name
was not given.]
BRANTWOOD, Qth November, 1886.
DEAR MR. , It is not " time " — but sight — that I have to be pru-
dently economical in, in correspondence. My sight is still good for fine
work by daylight, but I can only read large print by candlelight ; and
the most valuable arid affectionate letter of three pages too often waits
long before it can be read, however much I wish to do so. Else yours
of the 15th would have been thankfully answered before now.
The actual illnesses of which accounts, to my great regret and incon-
venience, go to the papers, are fits of, sometimes trance, sometimes waking
delirium, which last their time, like a fit of the gout, and then leave me,
weaker in limb and nervous energy, of course, but quite as " well " in
the proper sense of the word, as I was before — only, with each fit, more
cautious of plaguing, or even interesting, myself about things in general,
and more grateful for letters expressing, as yours does, a sense of good in
my past work. And it is quite possible that the sense of languor is rather
because I have withdrawn from that work to forms of selfish study, than
because my strength is materially abated.
At all events I shall be glad to hear from you on any occasion when
you think a line from me would be useful.
Ever your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
Sincere thanks to Mr. M , also, please.
THE CHANCES OF REFORM
[The Edinburgh University Social Reform Society had elected Ruskin an
honorary member, and this is a reply to the secretary's letter asking him to accept
office, addressed to Mr. William Marwick. The letter was printed in Igdrasil,
September 1890, vol. i. p. 350, and reprinted in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 68
(No. 72).]
BRANTWOOD, 23rd Nov., '86.
MY DEAR SIR, — I gladly accept the honour done me by the U.S.R.
Society, of which your yesterday's letter tells me ; but my teaching days
are past, — if, indeed, they were ever present, it must now be for others
to say. I have no insight into the future of this or any other country,
and hope for no reform, till it will be too late for my eyes to see it.
Ever your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
Please give my best compliments to your president.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 599
THE ABOLITION OF RENT
[This letter first appeared on page 2 of the Christian Socialist, January 1887,
where it is stated to have been addressed to a member of the Christian Socialist
Society. The letter was reprinted in Igdrasil, September 1890, vol. i. p. 346, and
thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 64 (No. 63). It does not appear whether
the'- passage from Carlyle (Past and Present, Book iii. ch. viii.) was enclosed by
Ruskin in his letter, or added to it by the editor of the Socialist.']
BBANTWOOD, Dec. llth, 1886.
DEAR , ... I should have thought the question about raising rent
had been, to your own knowledge, enough answered by me. I have in
several, if not in many places,1 declared the entire system of rent-paying
to be an abomination and wickedness of the foulest kind ; and have only
ceased insisting on that fact of late years because I would not be counted
among the promoters of mob violence. The future, not only of England
but of Christendom, must issue in abolition of rents ; but, whether with
confusion and slaughter, or by the action of noble and resolute men in
the rising generation of England and her colonies, remains to be decided.
I fear the worst, and that soon. . . .
Ever affectionately yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
" Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two : to the Almighty God, and
to all His children of men that ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work
well on it.
" Who made the land of England ? Who made it, this respectable English
land, wheat-growing, metalliferous, carboniferous, which will let readily hand-over-
hand for seventy millions and upwards, as it here lies: who did make it? 'We!'
answer the much consuming aristocracy ; ' We ! ' as they ride in, moist with the
sweat of Melton Mowbray. ' It is we that made it ; or are heirs, assigns and
representatives of those who did.' My brothers, YOU? Everlasting honour to you,
then, and Corn Laws as many as you will, till your own deep stomachs cry
enough ! or some voice of human pity for our famine bids you hold ! Ye are as
gods that can create soil ; soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. . . .
" Infatuated mortals, into what questions are you driving every thinking man
in England?" — T. CARLYLE.
TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN
[From the Athenaum, February 17, 1900, introduced as an instance of Ruskin's
" boundless private benefactions." It seems that early in the 'seventies a country
clergyman, entirely unknown to Ruskin, had written "expostulating with him for
publishing his works at a price prohibitory to poor country clergy like himself.
Mr. Ruskin replied that he was sorry to say he was just issuing a still more expen-
sive edition of The Stones of Venice, a volume of which he would gladly send his
1 [See, for instance, in this volume, p. 229 ; Vol. XXIX. pp. 136, 189-190 317 ;
and see the General Index.]
600 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
correspondent. It did not come, and the parson naturally did not like to remind
Mr. Ruskiu of his promise. At length one Christmas, when sixteen years had
elapsed, he ventured to recall to Mr. Ruskin, as delicately as he could, his long-
forgotten promise." The edition of the Stones " still more expensive" than the
"Works" series was that of 1873.]
BBANTWOOD, December 28, 1886.
MY DEAR SIR, — My Xmas letters are more than I can ever answer
rightly, but the delay in reply to yours vexes me, almost as much as my
sixteen years' forgetful ness. But you should have reminded me before now !
You will, I hope, receive the entire new edition of the Stones1 from my
publisher on New Year's Day, and with every good wish for you and your
family, believe me always,
Your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
PICTURES FOR THE POOR
[From " Ruskin and Girlhood : some Happy Reminiscences," by Mrs. L. Allen
Barker, in Scribner's Magazine, November 1906, p. 561. Ruskin's correspondent
" had boldly written to him complaining that a photograph of his beloved Carpaccio's
St. Ursula had been received with the scantiest approbation by a bedridden old
woman."]
[1886?]
Give the poor whatever pictures you find they like — of nice things, not
of merely pathetic or pompous ones. They're apt to like sick children
starving in bed, beggars at street doors, Queen Victoria opening Parlia-
ment, etc. Give them anything that's simple, cheerful, or pious ; always,
if possible, coloured — never mind how badly. Shall I send you some
coloured birds ?
LIFE ASSURANCE
[From a pamphlet entitled Life Assurance in Literature, by A. Arthur Reade.
Manchester: A. Ireland & Co., Pall Mall, 1888. 16 pp. Ruskin's letter is on
page 12.]
BRANTWOOD, 6th Jan., 1887.
DEAR SIR, — I have never examined the question of Life Assurance,
nor looked at the statistics of it, but I have hitherto considered it, if
honestly effected, to be in most cases right, and in many, wise. It is
certainly the contrary so far as it encourages the farther spending of any
portion of income which would otherwise have been laid by.
Your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [The edition of 1886 : see Vol. IX. p. liv.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 601
LEADERSHIP
[From the Pall Mall Gazette (under the heading "Mr. Ruskin on Lord Ran-
dolph "), January 10, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October 1890, vol. ii. p. 16, and
thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 75-76 (No. 82).]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BRANTWOOD, January 7 [1887].
SIR, — You have already given more space to your kind notices of Prae-
terita than I can understand your sparing; yet I trust your still finding
a corner in which I may correct a formality about which I am sensitive,
as to the position of the partners of the Xeres house (Xerez I believe
I should have spelled the word all through), called in your Wednesday's
notice " Domecq, Ruskin & Co." There was no Co., and the title on the
Billiter Street plate was " Ruskin, Telford, and Domecq." It would seem
to a practical person that it should have been Domecq — Telford — and
Ruskin ; for Mr. Domecq brought the land into the business, Mr. Telford
the money, and my father only his good, and extremely strong, will.1
You, Sir, being, as I have only begun lately to get well into my head,
a Republican, are of course by nature incapable of conceiving the idea of
authority. But, I assure you, my father, though not only a poor man, but
"worth," in the City sense, much less than nothing, at the time of the
firm's incorporation, was yet — then and always — as much the head of the
firm as the Caliph Omar was Father of the Faithful.
Incidentally, may I also be permitted to represent to you that in your
recent articles on the decomposition of the gaseous materials of the British
Parliament you do not appear in the least to understand the difference
between the head of a firm and the leader of a party. And, further, that
in your comments on the position taken up by Lord Randolph Churchill
with respect to economies,2 you do not appear to see more clearly than
other members of the wise Press Confraternity that the war expenditure
of all nations is now directed — not to their good or safety, but much, and
even infinitely — to their harm and peril, in paying their ironmongers for
the manufacture of ironclads and stink-pots, and in maintaining the younger
members of their governing bodies in the graceful, amusing, and certainly
— I speak as an artist — decorative and dramatic profession of Arms.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [See Preeterita, i. §§ 24, 25.]
2 IX
[On December 23, 1886, Lord Randolph Churchill had announced in the Times
his resignation of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the ground of the
refusal of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, to concur in suggested reductions
in the Naval and Military Estimates.]
602 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
HOME RULE
[From the Pall Mull Gazette, January 17, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October
1890, vol. ii. p. 15, and thence in Ruskinlana, part i., 1890, pp. 74-75 (No. 81).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, Jan. 16 [1887].
SIR, — It was ever so nice of you to print my Tory letter last week.
Will you now let me explain more seriously how much of it is really on
your side ; though, perhaps, more on your side than you will quite like ?
For I am with Ireland altogether in these present matters, as I am with
Scotland, with India, with Afghanistan, and with Natal. I should like to
see Home Rule (in my sense of Ruling — not yours) everywhere. I should
like to see Ireland under a King of Ireland ; Scotland under a Douglas,
tender and true ; l India under a Rajah ; and England under her Queen,2 and
by no manner of means under Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Bright. Also I wish,
when you are writing about what you call the British Constitution, that you
would bring the great article of Magna Charta oftener into the British free-
man's head that " Law shall not be sold." But chiefly to-day I pray you
to print the following character of Grattan, by Sydney Smith, which should
be of some use in showing the Irish members at Westminster under what
conception of them Ireland should " expect " every man to do his duty.8
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
" Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What
Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of Grattan? Who has
not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland?
Who did not remember him in the days of its burnings, wastings, and murders ?
No government ever dismayed him — the world could not bribe him — he thought
only of Ireland : lived for no other object, dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his
elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendours of his astonishing eloquence.
He was so born, so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the
highest attainments of human genius were within his reach ; but he thought the
noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free ; and in that
straight line he kept for fifty years, without one side-look, one yielding thought,
one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God or
man." — From an article by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh Review on " Ireland." *
ART IN MANCHESTER
[From the Manchester Guardian, February 11, 1887. Reprinted in the Pall Mall
Gazette of the same date. Thence reprinted in Igdrasil, June 1890, vol. i. p. 212,
and in Ruskiniana, part i., p. 30 (No. 22). Mr. Partington, an artist associated
1 [Compare Preeterita, iii. § 81.]
2 On this subject, see above, p. 220.]
3 [For other references to Nelson's signal, see Vol. XX. p. 42, and Vol. XXVI.
p. 182.]
4 [See vol. i. p. 397 of Sydney Smith's Works (1845).]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 603
with Manchester, had delivered an attack on the system of art education adopted
by South Kensington, and pursued also by the Manchester School of Art. Follow-
ing up a spirited controversy on the subject, a student in the Manchester school
obtained the opinions of various notabilities, and among them the following letter
from Ruskin.]
BRANTWOOD, February 2, 1887.
SIR, — I am sixty-eight this month, have my own business to do and
books to read, and beg to decline reading the 3 by 8 equal 24 columns
of Manchester "opinions" on the subject of art teaching, among which
you honour me by the request that I should intercolumniate mine.
If the twenty-six students on whose behalf you sign will subscribe each
of them a shilling fee for my opinion, let them buy my Laws of Fesole
and lend the book to each other, and do what it bids, till they begin to
understand a little what it means.
And for unfeed reply to your newspaper editors, here is my — not opinion
— but very sure and stern knowledge.
That it is impossible for Manchester, or any towns the least like Man-
chester, to have schools of art in them at all.
Art cannot be taught by fouling the skies over their heads and stealing
their drink from other lands.1
Ever your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
You have, of course, my entirely complacent permission to publish my
reply in the Guardian.
THE PROJECTED AMBLESIDE RAILWAY
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 2, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, July
1890, vol. i. p. 253, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 45 (No. 41). The
Railway Scheme, described above (p. 135), had been revived, and the Bill passed
the second reading in the House of Commons. The Pall Mall Gazette thereupon
urged vigorous opposition (February 18) and collected various opinions on the
subject. The Bill was ultimately rejected.]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
[March 1, 1887.]
I have been watching with deep thankfulness your paragraph about
the railway, but my health is too much broken to allow of my writing
with energy on subjects which excite me into indignant grief. And if I
wrote at all it would be on war, and that you have told me is possible
1 [On the former point, compare the letter entitled " On Art and Smoke "
(above, p. 521) ; and on the Manchester water-works at Thirlmere, see above,
p. 348.]
604 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
in this year of peace.1 But you are at liberty « to quote what I wrote
about a similar railway scheme ten years ago ; 2 although I fear that you
will only weaken your cause with the present public by reference to me.
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, March 1, 1887. 3
MY DEAR SIR, — I do not write now further concerning railroads here^or
elsewhere. They are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant,
animated and deliberate earthquakes, destructive of all wise social habit
or possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of
their own graves.
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE LAKE DISTRICT
[From the Lancaster Observer, March 25, 1887, headed " Railway Promoters."
In its issue of March 18, the Observer had a leading article dealing with the
proposed Ambleside railway, and suggesting, with reference to that and other
projects of the kind, that the district should be acquired by the nation as a
" National Treasure," on the analogy of Yellowstone Park in America.]
To the Editor of the "Lancaster Observer"
BBANTWOOD, 19th March, 1887.
SIR, — I am both obliged and pleased by your reference to me in your
yesterday's article on the Ambleside railway, and entirely concur with you
in the recommendation that the whole Lake district should be bought by
the nation for itself; but with reference to the sentence imputing to me
"a claim to carry out my theories at other people's expense," may I be
permitted to remind (or inform) the public that I have given «£ 14,000 to
Oxford, £2000 to Cambridge, £7000 to the St. George's Guild, and some
£3000 or £4000 to different schools and museums, beginning with the
one I founded at Sheffield ; that this total of £25,000 has been given out
of a fortune probably reaching not the 25th part of the sum possessed by
the people who want to enrich themselves further by the ruin of the Lake
district ; and that I do not intend, therefore, one farthing more to be com-
pelled out of my pockets by the various tribes of louts and scoundrels who
are promoting either the Ambleside Railway Bill or any other brutality of
the kind.
I ain, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1 [The reference is to the Bulgarian question, which, in the opinion of the
Gazette, was at this time threatening war. The Boulangist movement in France
was also considered dangerous.]
1 [The passages quoted were from the " Protest against Railways in the Lake
District" : see above, pp. 137-143.]
8 [From the Birmingham Gazette, March 3, and the Times, March 3, 1887. Re-
printed in Igdrasil, July 1890, vol. i. p. 253, and thence in Ruskiniana, p. 45
(No. 42), where the date in the Times was wrongly given as " March 4."]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 605
THE BUSINESS OF UNIVERSITIES
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 15, 1887- Reprinted in Igdra&il, August
1890, vol. i. pp. 302-303, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 56-57 (No. 54),
where the date was wrongly given as " 1885." The Pall Mall Gazette had recently
published a series of articles (reprinted as an "Extra") on English Literature and
How to Study it; a report (February 28) of an address by Mr. John Morley to
University Extension students; and the results of a "Plebiscite" on an English
Academy (February 24).]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, March 14 [1887].
MY DEAR SIR, — I have been watching with great interest, as you may
suppose — though not feeling it my business to intermeddle — all you've
been saying lately, and getting said, on Academies and Universities — and
Literature, and the like infinities of subject ; and I merely write to-day
to relieve my mind a little, feeling more than usually lazy, by observing
that I entirely dissent from everything you've been saying, and everything
that everybody has said, particularly your Plebiscite, and that the Univer-
sity's business in any country in Europe is to teach its youths as much
Latin, Greek, mathematics, and astronomy as they can quietly learn in the
time they're at it — and nothing else ; that if they don't learn their own
language at home, they can't learn it at a university ; that if they want
to learn Chinese they should go to China ; and if they want to learn Dutch,
to Amsterdam : and after they've learned all they want, learn wholesomely
to hold their tongues, except on extreme occasions, in all languages what-
soever.
I am, dear Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
"BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME"
[From the British Weekly Extras, No. I. (London: 27, Paternoster Row),
pp. 43-45, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. pp. 58-59, and
thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 85-86 (Nos. 88 and 89).]
(1)
BRANTWOOD, 14th May [1887].
The books that have most influenced me are inaccessible to the general
reader, — Horace, Pindar, and Dante, for instance, — but these following are
good for everybody : —
Scott's Lady of the Lake and Marmion (the Lady first for me, though
not for Scott).
Pope's Homer's Iliad.
Byron, all ; but most Corsair, Bride of Abydos, and the Two Foscari.
Coleridge and Keats, in my youth.
606 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Burns, as I grew older and wiser.
Moliere, always.
All good modern French comedies.
All fine French divinity and science. I never read English sermons or
scientific books, and only Humboldt1 (translated) of German.
Good French sensation novels, chiefly Les Mysteres de Paris, the Comte
de Monte Christo, and Gaboriau's Monsieur le Coq and L'Argent des Autres.
(2)
BRANTWOOD, June 3.
SIR, — Your note of farther question, what books have most influenced
my style, and which are my favourites, has lain these seven days in my
desk, becoming less answerable the more I thought of it. Every book
that I like influences my style,2 and fifty years of constant reading have
carried me through more pleasant books than I can remember. But what
I suppose to be best in my own manner of writing has been learned
chiefly from Byron and Scott.
Of favourite books I have — none ; every book on my library shelves is a
favourite in its own way and time. Some are the guides of life, others its
solaces, others its food and strength ; nor can I say whether I like best to
be taught or amused. The book oftenest in my hand of late years is
certainly Carlyle's Frederick. It is one of the griefs of my old age that I
know Scott by heart ; but still, if I take up a volume of him, it is not
laid down again for the next hour ; and I am always extremely grateful
to any friend who will tell me of a cheerful French novel or pretty
French play.
There is little difference, as far as I can see, between me and any
other well-trained scholar, in the liking of books of high caste and cheer-
ful tone. But I imagine few people suffer as I do from any chance
entanglement in a foolish or dismal fiction.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
SCOTT AND SCOTSMEN
[This letter, addressed to au Edinburgh student (Mr. A. Stodart-Walker), is
from the Times, June 3, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. p. 62,
and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 90 (No. 93).]
BHANTWOOD, Whit Tuesday, 1887.
MY DEAR SIR, — You hear a great deal nowadays of the worst nonsense
ever uttered since men were born on earth. " Best hundred books " !
Have you ever read yet one good book well ? For a Scotsman, next to
1 [Compare above, p. 583.]
2 [Ruskin elsewhere mentions Hooker and Johnson in this connexion : see
Vol. IV. p. 334, and Prceterita, i. § 2, ii. § 184.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 607
his Bible, there is but one book — his native land ; but one language — his
native tongue — the sweetest, richest, subtlest, most musical of all the living
dialects of Europe. Study your Burns, Scott, and Carlyle. Scott in his
Scotch novels only, and of those only the cheerful ones, with The Heart
of Midlothian, but not The Bride of Lammermoor, nor the Legend of Montrose
nor The Pirate. Here is a right list : Waverley, Guy Mannering, The Anti-
quary, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Monastery, The Abbot, Redgauntlet, Heart
of Midlothian^ Get any of them you can in the old large-print edition
when you have a chance, and study every sentence in them. They
are models of every virtue in their order of literature, and exhaustive codes
of Christian- wisdom and ethics. I have written this note with care. I
should be glad that you sent a copy of it to any paper read generally
by the students of the University of Edinburgh, and remain always
Faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
.THE FUNCTION OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE"
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, June 8, 1887- Reprinted in fydrasil, Novem-
ber 1890, vol. ii. pp. 66-67, and thence (No. 104) in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890,
pp. 94-95. The letter was suggested by the issue of the Gazette for June 4, which
contained (on p. 3) an article on Eternal Punishment and (on p. 2) a criticism of
"The Musical Knights" (Cusins, Stainer, Bridges, Stanford, and Barnby). The
editor in a prefatory note observed : " There is a sad undernote of weariness in the
postscript. If Mr. Ruskin were not somewhat worn with age, he would laugh at
the ' cruel and wicked form of libel ' which is only the invariable formula by
which commonplace people have accounted for all human phenomena, from St. Paul
to General Gordon, the secret springs of whose action are not to be found in the
swine-trough of vulgar comfort or the most sweet voices of the applauding mob."]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BRANTWOOD, June 6th [1887].
SIR, — Permit me, in anxious courtesy, to advise you that the function
of the Pall Mall Gazette is neither to teach theology nor criticise art.
You have taken an honest and powerful position in modern politics —
and ethics ; you have nothing whatever to do with traditions of eternal
punishment, but only to bring, so far as you may, immediate malefactors
to immediate punishment.
It is quite immaterial to the great interests of the British nation
whether a popular music-master be knighted — or left in his simple dignity
of troubadour; but it is of infinite importance that the already belted
knights of England should speak truth, and do justice ; and that the
1 [Compare the list of twelve in Fiction, Fair and Foul, above, p. 292. The
present list omits three there included — namely, Fortunes of Nigel (where the scene
is English), Quentin Durward (where it is French), and Woodstock.]
608 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
ancient lords of England should hold their power in England, and of
Ireland in Ireland, and of Scotland in Scotland, — and not gamble and race
their estates away — nor live in London clubhouses at the cost of their
poor tenants.
These things you have to teach, Sir, and to plead for ; and permit me
farther to tell you as your constant, but often grieved reader, that as you
make your columns in part useless with irrelevant religious debate and art
gossip, so you make them too often horrible with records of crime which
should be given only in the Police News.
Use your now splendidly organized body of correspondents to find out
what is well done by good and wise men, under the advancing conditions
of our civilization — expose, once for all, the fallacies of dishonest or ignorant
politicians — and name them no more — (how much type have you spent,
do you suppose, in printing the names of members of the present scratch
Parliament,1 who know no more of policy than their parish beadle ?)
Press home whatever wise and gentle and practical truth you find
spoken, whether in Parliament or out of it, by men who are seeking for
truth and for peace.
And believe me always your faithful and grateful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
I have not written this letter with my usual care, for I am at pre-
sent tired and sad ; but you will enough gather my meaning in it ; and
may I pray of your kindness, in any notice you grant the continuation of
Prceterita,2 to contradict the partly idle, partly malicious rumours which
I find have got into other journals, respecting my state of health this
spring. Whenever I write a word that my friends don't like, they say
I am crazy ; and never consider what a cruel and wicked form of libel
they thus provoke against the work of an old age in all its convictions
antagonistic to the changes of the times, and in all its comfort oppressed
by them.
Commenting on this letter, Ruskin wrote to a correspondent : 3 —
"Its (that is, the Pall Mall Gazette's) business is not to criticise art; but the
Spectator's, Athenaeum's, Times', and myriads of minor gazettes which have criticism
for a specialty, or a part of their general scope of work. No function can possibly
be to-day more honourable or needful than that of a candid and earnest art-
critic, whether of music or painting. Of the ' so-called ' art-critics, surely you need
not ask for my opinion ! But I am not bitter against them : they only echo
public conversation, and I would rather that conversation turned on art than
politics."
1 [The Gazette had during the General Election of the previous year (July
1886) published biographies, etc., concerning the members of the New Parliament ;
reissued as an "Extra."]
2 [The Parts (which were successively noticed in the Pall Mall Gazette) had been
suspended after March 1887, and were resumed with Part 23 on June 9 (noticed in
the Gazette of June 16).]
8 [From the Pall Mall Gazette, June 24, 1887. The correspondent was Mr. M. H.
Spielmann, at that time art-critic of the Gazette."]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 609
CHARLES KINGSLEY
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, June 24, 1887. The letter was addressed to
Mr. VV. L. T. Brown, of the Homerton Grove Young Men's Institute, who wrote
to Ruskiu that his books and Kingsley's were the most effective with the members
of the Institute.]
BBANTWOOD [1887].
MY DEAR SIR, — That two such opposite authors should take hold of
the same minds is entirely probable if the opposites are both a part of
the world and its sky. Kingsley liked east wind;1 I like west. Kingsley
stepped westward — Yankee way. I step eastward, thinking the old star
stands where it used to. There was much in Kingsley that was delight-
ful to raw thinkers, and men generally remain raw in this climate. He
was always extremely civil to me, and to Carlyle, but failed in the most
cowardly way when we had the Eyre battle to fight.2 He was a flawed —
partly rotten, partly distorted — person, but may be read with advantage by
numbers who could not understand a word of me, because I speak of
things they never saw or never attended to. I extremely dislike Kingsley's
tragedy myself, but if other people like hearing of girls being devoured or
torn to pieces, that is their affair.s Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
AT WHAT AGE A MAN SHOULD MARRY
[From the Young Man, August 1887, vol. i. No. 8, p. 85. The letter was
sent, as explained on p. 88, in response to the editor's question, " At what age
should a young man marry?"]
[1887.]
No man should marry till he has made himself worthy of a good wife,
and able to maintain her and his children in comfort. And he should
choose her as he would choose his destiny : with range of choice from
Earth to Heaven.
No man should marry under four-and-twenty ; no girl under eighteen.4
1 [For another reference to Kingsley's Ode to the North-East Wind see Vol. XVII.
p. 507. Another poem of Kingsley's ("The Invitation to Tom Hughes") contained,
it will be remembered, the following playful lines : —
"Leave to mournful Ruskin
Popish Apennines,
Dirty Stones of Venice
And his Gas-lamps Seven —
We've the stones of Snowdon
And the lamps of heaven."
For another reference to Kingsley's Westward Ho ! see Vol. XIV. p. 346.]
1 [On this subject, see Vol. XVIII. pp. xliv.-xlvi., where it is stated that Kingsley
was on Governor Eyre's side. This is true, for Kingsley in 1866 had attended a ban-
quet given to him at Southampton, and was violently abused in the press on that
account (see Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of his Life, edited by his Wife,
1870, vol. ii. p. 195). Afterwards, however, Carlyle reported Kingsley as " hanging
back afraid" (Froude's Carlyle's Life in London, 1885, vol. ii. p. 329). Ruskin never for-
gave Kingsley for this ; and, referring one day to the subject in conversation with Mr.
Wedderburn, he added, " I never thought much of muscular Christianity after that."]
8 [See above, p. 586.] « [See Time and Tide, § 125 (Vol. XVII. p. 421).]
610 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
CHEAP BOOKS
[From Tit-Bits, December 5, 1891, No. 529, p. 159.]
BRANTWOOD [1887].
MY DEAR SIR, — If I thought it good for you to have my books cheap,
you should have them cheap or for nothing, but please remember the
profits told you l are made by a man of sixty-eight after a hard life's work
—just as he is dying. How many people do you suppose there are, making
ten times that profit on other people's work, to whose gain nobody objects,
and who are never asked to waive their profits to oblige anybody ?
That my books are not in your libraries is the fault of your general
teachers, and of those very swindlers who want to bring you up in their
swindling trades.
And it is your own fault also, because you ask for cheap sensation
and gratis good-for-nothing books, instead of working to have what is best
at its fair price, which it is perfectly in your power to do if you will.
Faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
I return you your letter, because if you like to send it with a copy of
my answer to any daily paper it might save others the trouble of writing
to me.
OLD FOLKESTONE
[From the Folkestone Express. Reprinted in Igdrasil, July 1890, vol. i. p. 255,
and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 47 (No. 46). Ruskin having bought
some drawings of Old Folkestone, a correspondent suggested his giving them to
the local museum. See further on this subject, the Conversation reported below,
p. 672.]
To the Editor of the "Folkestone Express"
FOLKESTONE, 30th September, 1887.
SIR, — My attention has been directed to the letter in your issue of
the 28th, headed "A Peep at Old Folkestone," to which I can only reply
that as New Folkestone has sold all that was left of Old Folkestone
to the service of Old Nick, in the multiform personality of the South-
Eastern Railway Company, charges me through the said company a penny
every time I want to look at the sea from the old pier, and allows itself
to be blinded for a league along the beach by smoke more black than
thunderclouds, I am not in the least minded to present New Folkestone
with any peeps and memories of the shore it has destroyed or the harbour
it has filled and polluted, and the happy and simple human life it has
1 [Presumably a reference to the " interview" with Mr. George Allen, in the
Pall Mall Gazette of March 28, 1887, in which it was stated that Ruskin's profits
from his books in 1886 was £4000.]
-I X
o ^
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 611
rendered for ever in the dear old town impossible. The drawings were
bought for better illustrations of Turner's work and my own on the har-
bours of England ; and will, I hope, therefore, be put to wider service than
they were likely to find in Folkestone Museum.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
MODERN SELFISHNESS
[From the Magdalen Magazine: a Journal of Magdalen College School (Oxford),
New Series, No. 6, November 1887, p. 57. Reprinted in Igdrasil, September 1890,
vol. i. p. 350, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 68 (No. 73).]
[1887.]
There is no remedy against this age of conquering selfishness, until it
and all the thoughts of this generation are swept away — as all sin and
folly must be — in our ultimate ruin. Live strongly and kindly ; thinking
of the cause of the poor always — all victory is in theirs.
AN EARTHQUAKE AT FLORENCE
[From the Timet, November 21, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890,
vol. ii. p. 104, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 117 (No. 140). The
extract sent by Ruskin was doubtless from a letter by Miss Francesca Alexander.
Further correspondence on the subject appeared in the Times of November 22, 23,
and 29 ; on the latter day full accounts appeared from Mr. Spencer Stanhope and
"An Old Resident." Beyond the fall of a chimney in the Via Bardi, no harm
was done. The shocks occurred between 5.20 and 6.48 A.M., and were accompanied
by a vivid Aurora Borealis.]
To the Editor of the "Times"
SANDOATB, Nov. 18 [1887].
SIR, — You may possibly be glad (or grieved), with some of your old-
world readers, to have the following short extract from a letter I received
this morning from Florence. I could not copy it for you till this evening,
as it brought more immediate business with it. You may depend on its
accuracy, both in what it says and does not say : —
" Di 14 Novembre, 1887.
" We had an earthquake this morning, which frightened everybody, and my
door shook so that I thought somebody was trying to break in, and then there
was a terrible noise, but I believe no harm done. The bells rang of themselves
at the Carmine, and some say that one or two chimneys fell, but nobody seems
to know."
The not saying what o'clock in the morning it was, nor what the ter-
rible noise was like, nor whether it seemed in earth or sky, nor whether
any mortal had looked whether there was a crack in the Dome, or a
newly twisted shaft in Giotto's Tower, or a shifted corner-stone in the
xxxiv. 2 ft
612 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Strozzi Palace, leaves us, at the moment the letter was written, with some-
thing yet to be anxious about — doubtless, long before you print this, sup-
plied by more scientific correspondents ; but I will answer, on the word of
this one, for thus much.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE TRAFALGAR SQUARE RIOTS
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, December 9, 1887. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October
1890, vol. ii. pp. 16-17, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 76 (No. 83).
Raskin was staying at this time at Morley's Hotel in Trafalgar Square. There
had been a series of noisy meetings of the unemployed and others in the Square,
and on November 8 Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of Police, had forbidden them.
On Sunday, November 13, the Square was occupied by the Guards, and an attempted
meeting was dispersed. Protests continued to be made, and Mr. John Burns,
among others, was arrested, tried, and imprisoned.]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
TRAFALGAR SQUARE, Dec. 7, 1887.
SIR, — I have not been able to read the papers lately, but coming up
on some business of my own find this old Square, and the new triangles
and crescents of London, in a state of bewilderment and panic extremely
curious to me. There are surely honest people enough in England to keep
the average of rogues in quiet; and that they don't know how is the
fault, not of the speakers in Trafalgar Square, but of the chatterers and
babblers in the Houses of Parliament for the last twenty years.
As for right, any British citizen has a right to stand on the parapet of
the terrace — if he can — and talk to any one who will listen to him, but
he has no right whatever to use his paternal wealth to buy himself leave
to talk nonsense in the House of Commons.
The shopkeepers have no business to ask the police to help them to
swindle the public with cheap things or tempt them with showy ones.
Let them shut their shops up — not on Sunday merely, to please God, but
all the other days of the week, to give their shopboys and girls a good
long Christmas holiday ; and if the boys and girls like to talk to each
other from the backs of the lions or the pillars of the lamp-posts, don't
let the Life Guards interfere, nor the police listen to what they are saying.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
CHARLES DICKENS
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 6, 1888. Reprinted in Igdrasil, November
1890, vol. ii. pp. 60-61, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 88-89
(No. 91).]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
SANDOATE, Jan. 4 [1888].
SIR, — May I ask you to correct a false impression which any of your
readers, who still care to know my opinions, would receive from the reference
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 618
to Dickens in your kind notice of my letters to Miss Beever, in your
article in the " Book Market " of December 30 ? x I have not the letters
here, and forget what I said about my Pickwick's not amusing me when
I was ill; but it always does, to this hour, when I am well; though
I have known it by heart, pretty nearly all, since it came out: and I
love Dickens with every bit of my heart, and sympathise in everything
he thought or tried to do, except in his effort to make more money by
readings, which killed him.2
And would you also let me ask your North Shields correspondent what
is wrong in the scientists' theory of waves ? 3 I have found fault with some
scientific notions about them myself;4 but I see nothing in your corre-
spondent's statement of the alternations between rough and smooth at
variance with any principle hitherto stated about waves by men either
of theoretical power or artistic knowledge. And, with what watching of
waves I have had time for myself — and it is not a little5 — I have never
been able to count the big waves into three or four, any more than
Burns could the horns of the moon.6
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
CEASING TO BE ENGLISH
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 17, 1888. Reprinted in Igdrasil, October
1890, vol. ii. pp. 11-12, and thence in Ruskiniana, part L, 1890, p. 71 (No. 74).]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
SANDGATE, Jan. Qth [1888].
SIR, — You are writing at present some of the most valuable and most
candid articles I have ever seen in an English journal ; but is it really
1 [A review of Hortus Inclusus. The reviewer said : " In December 1887, labour-
ing under an attack of cold and catarrh, Mr. Raskin, to comfort himself, tried to
read Pickwick, but characterised it in a way which will astonish admirers of Dickens."
For the actual letter, see, in a later volume, the letter of December 16, 1877
(Hortus Inclusus, ed. 1, p. 49): "I seem entirely devoid of all moral sentiments. I
have arrived at this state of things, first by catching cold, and since by trying to
'amuse myself ; for three days I tried to read Pickwick, but found that vulgar, and,
besides, I know it all by heart."]
2 [See above, p. 517. For Ruskin's admiration of Dickens, tempered, however,
by much criticism, see the General Index. It may be mentioned that at a recent
sale at Christie's a copy of the first edition of The Stones of Venice was sold
(£37), bearing the inscription, ft Charles Dickens, Esq., with the author's grateful
regards."]
• [lu the same issue of the Daily Telegraph, "A North Shields correspondent
writes : ' The scientists' idea of a wave is purely theoretical ' " — a description of the
alternation of " rough" and "smooth" waves follows.]
4 [This is a subject which Ruskin had intended to pursue, but which he aban-
doned : see Vol. in. p. 678, and Vol. VII. p. 7.]
• [See Preeterita, i. § 86.]
• [For the lines from Death and Doctor Hornbook here referred to, see Vol. III.
p. 652.]
614 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
in earnest that you defend the form of " Pax Romana " now kept in the
streets of London, against the magistrate's (Mr. Bridge's) question, " Are
we ceasing to be English ? " l We are not ceasing, because for the last
thirty years, at the least, we have ceased to be English. Swindling was
not formerly the method of English trade, nor advertising its necessity.
Luxury was not anciently the glory of English life, nor darkness and filth
its inevitable conditions. Once we imported from America neither meat
nor manners ; from France neither art nor religion. Our British Navy did
not use to fight with torpedoes under water, nor our British Army with
rifles from behind a hedge. And to keep to the case before the magis-
trate— neither Roman nor English peace consists in allowing our police
to be shot by burglars or forgers (unless perchance the revolver miss
fire) ; but primarily in forbidding the sale of revolvers to any private person
whatsoever.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
NOVELS AND THEIR ENDINGS
[From the Daily Telegraph, January 17, 1888. Reprinted in Igdrasil, Novem-
ber 1890, vol. ii. pp. 61-62, and thence iu Ruskiniana, part L, 1890, pp. 89-90
(No. 92).]
To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph "
SANDGATE, Jan. 15, 1888.
SIR, — In the notice with which you honoured my short letter last
week, you justly said that I had left the idea of English character, to
which I appealed, without definition ; while the tenor of your article
implied that the manliness which was our birthright consisted chiefly in
love of athletic exercise, and the courage which of late has, perhaps,
taken too much the aspect of a scorn of life. My own first idea of
British manhood would be trustworthiness of word and work ; the second,
independence of other people's opinions, in not living for display, but for
comfort — as, for instance, Sydney Smith at Foston ; 2 the third, respect for
old rather than flexibility by new fashions ; the last, and the chief, such
honour for women as would prevent their being driven from home to get
their living how they could, or provoked to insist upon rights of which
that home had bereaved them.
1 [The article (January 9) was written on a case in which Detective-Inspector
Lansdowne was arresting a man charged with forgery, who drew out a six-chambered
revolver, exclaiming, " Let me go or you are a doomed man." " The officer did not
let go, there was a click, but one of the chambers was providentially unloaded and
the trigger had descended on this." A struggle ensued, and a crowd assembled, but
the people on catching sight of the revolver immediately ran away. Mr. Bridge,
the police magistrate, on hearing the evidence to this effect, exclaimed, "Are we
ceasing to be English?" The Telegraph in a leading article around the subject
made excuses for the crowd, saying, inter alia, " Wherever England holds rule,
there the ' Pax Romana ' is established ; there is no need for a man to be con-
stantly thinking how to repel attacks," etc., etc.]
:ly
[*
2 [For the reference here, see Vol. VII. p. 357.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 615
I will not trespass on your indulgence by any attempt to expand these
now discarded conceptions of our insular strength or felicity ; but with
respect to the subject of my previous letter — the way we lost Dickens, by
the overstrain of modern conditions of popularity l — may I be allowed to
express one of the increasing discomforts of my old age, in never being
allowed by novelists to stay long enough with people I like, after I once
get acquainted with them.2 It has always seemed to me that tales of
interesting persons should not end with their marriage ; and that, for the
general good of society, the varied energies and expanding peace of wedded
life would be better subjects of interest than the narrow aims, vain dis-
tresses, or passing joys of youth.
I felt this acutely the other day, when the author3 to whom we owe
the most finished and faithful rendering ever yet given of the character
of the British soldier, answered my quite tearful supplication to her, that
Mignon and Lucy might not vanish in an instant into the regions of
Prseterita and leave me desolate, by saying that she was herself as sorry
to part with Mignon as I could be, but that the public of to-day would
never permit insistence on one conception beyond the conventionally estab-
lished limits. To which distrust I would answer — and ask you, as the
interpreter of widest public opinion, to confirm me in answering — that
for readers even of our own impatient time, the most beautiful surprises
of novelty and the highest praises of invention are in the recognized and
natural growth of one living creation ; and neither in shifting the scenes
of fate as if they were lantern slides, nor in tearing down the trellises of
our affections that we may train the branches elsewhere.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
RUSKIN AND HIS TRANSLATORS
[From the Daily Telegraph and Pall Mall Gazette, February 9, 1888. Reprinted
in Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii. pp. 65-66, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i.,
1890, p. 93 (No. 101). The letter was addressed to E. Horner, who desired
permission to render Sesame and Lilies into German. The work was ultimately
carried out by another translator in 1900: see Vol. XVIII. p. 15.]
SANDGATE, 25th Jan., 1888.
SIR, — I am obliged to refer all requests to translate my books to my
publisher, as I do not know what arrangements may already have been
1 [See above, p. 517.]
2 [One of the reasons of Ruskin's dislike of George Eliot's novels was that they
"end so wretchedly": see Vol. XXVII. p. 538.]
8 [Mrs. Arthur Stannard, who, under the nom de plume of "John Strange
Winter," has written Booties' Baby, Mignorfs Secret, and other popular tales. In
one of these, Mignon's Children, she has expressly complied with Ruskin's request,
and given some account of her heroine's married life : for her correspondence with
Ruskin, see Vol. XXXVII.]
616 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
made with him. I am myself, however, entirely opposed to translations.
There are good books enough for every nation in its own language; if
it wants to study the writers of other races — it should be in their own
tongues.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.1
WELSH SCENERY
[From Darlington's ' ' Handbooks to North Wales " (The Vale of Llangollen,
p. ix.). Reprinted in Igdrasil, July 1890, vol. i. p. 254, and thence in Ruskiniana,
part i., 1890, p. 46 (No. 45). At another time " Mr. Tracy Turnerelli received
from Mr. John Ruskin a letter expressing sympathy with the former's 'good work
at Llandudno.' Mr. Ruskin says it pains him deeply to find the most beautiful
places desecrated wantonly by the hand of man, and he feels that the thanks of
all true lovers of nature are due to Mr. Turnerelli's successful attempt to pre-
serve the beauty of the Great Orme's Head" (Pall Mall Gazette, October 29,
1890). Ruskin's first visit to Llangollen was in 1831 : see Vol. II. p. 316 n. For
later visits, see Vol. XVII. p. xxxviii. n. (1861) ; Vol. XXVII. p. 694 (1876) ; and
Vol. XXX11I. p. xlviii. (1883).]
SANDGATE, 27 February, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR, — The whole valley, when I once got up past the " Works "
— (whatever the accursed business of them) — on the north hillside, seemed
to me entirely lovely in its gentle wildness, and struck me more because
our Westmorland ones are mere dells between disorderly humps of rock ;
but the Vale of Llangollen is a true valley between ranges of grandly
formed hills ; — peculiar above Valle Crucis in the golden mosaic of gorse
on their emerald turf — where we have nothing but heath and ling. The
Dee itself is a quite perfect mountain stream, and the village of Llan-
gollen, when I first knew it — fifty years ago — one of the most beautiful
and delightful in Wales, or anywhere else.
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE SCENERY OF SCOTT
[The following note on Scott] was quoted on page 20 of The Vale of Llangollen,
having been written in reply to an inquiry whether the scenery of The Betrothed
could be localised. It was reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette, April 11, 1888 ; in
Igdrasil (as above), p. 225 ; and Ruskiniana, p. 47 (No. 46).]
[February, 1888.]
Touching the scenery of The Betrothed, it is to be observed gener-
ally that in his later work Scott is extremely careless of locality. In
Peveril of the Peak there is no syllable of the Peak Cavern; in Anne of
1 [Some years later (1896) the committee of the Welsh National Eisteddfod
applied to Ruskin for permission to include in the programme of competition
translations of portions of his poems into the Welsh language. Mr. W. G. Colling-
wood, writing in reply from Brantwood, said : " With regard to the proposed
prize, Mr. Ruskin acknowledges with thanks the compliment implied ; but he has
always felt extremely indisposed towards translations from his works, and it would
perhaps be hardly fair to persons to whom he has refused permission to translate
into French and German, if he were now to sanction translations into Welsh."]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 617
Geierstein no attempt at description of Baden or Strasburg ; nor do I
remember in The Betrothed a word of description which could localise its
scenery.1 In his later work Sir Walter used to make fricassee of his own
impressions and serve out the first morsels that got into the spoon.
MB. RALPH DARLINGTON.
BICYCLES
[From Tit-Bits, March 31, 1888, p. 399. Reprinted in Igdratil, December 1890,
volt ii. p. 205, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 118 (No. 143).]
[1888.]
I not only object, but am quite prepared to spend all my best "bad
language " in reprobation of the bi-, tri-, and 4-5-6 or 7 cycles, and every
other contrivance and invention for superseding human feet on God's
ground. To walk, to run, to leap, and to dance are the virtues of the
human body, and neither to stride on stilts, wriggle on wheels, or dangle
on ropes, and nothing in the training of the human mind with the body
will ever supersede the appointed God's ways of slow walking and hard
working.
JOURNALISM
[From the Chrittian Union, August 23, 1888. "A young man," it is there ex-
plained, "having asked Mr. Ruskin for advice as to entering journalism, Mr. Ruskin
jotted down some rough notes for expansion by his secretary, who, however, for-
warded the notes themselves, thus : — "]
[1888.]
Cannot advise — should say yes — if he resolves to be still a gentleman
as he is a gentleman's son, and to remain honest.
|THE ALPS
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 23, 1889.]
To the Editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette "
BBANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
March 21 [1889].
SIR, — Mr. Ruskin desires me to ask you to add to the statement
(page 7 of your issue of the 19th) that he "asserted the splendour of
the Alps to lie below the snow level, only a few years ago," 2 that the
1 [This letter having been printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, a correspondent
wrote to the editor of that paper to point out that " Clun Castle, on the Clun,
on the border between Shropshire and Radnorshire, is universally considered in
South Wales the scene of the story, upon the authority of the reference to the
castle and river of Colune in the first chapter of the novel."]
1 [For Ruskin's assertion to this effect, see in Vol. XXXvH. a letter of Octo-
ber 1, 1874, which had been published in 1887 in Hortus Inclusus. The passage
CIS ARROWS OF THE CHACE
outline of the Matterhorn, figure 80, in Modern Painters, vol. 4 (1856), was
the first photograph (Daguerreotyped) ever taken of a high Alp at all,
and that his preference of the splendours of lower scenery depends on the
fact that he prefers the Primula farinosa to the Ranunculus glacialis, and
both to the flowers described in your article, page 4, of yesterday,
" Flowers that bloom in the spring " l as the " Madame Van der Hoop
hyacinth," the " Pottebakker white " tulip, and the " Cattleya Trianae-
amphiata " orchid, although these flourish under a sky which does not
make the human figure "pewter-coloured in the high lights," and under
which it is possible to "paint cows anywhere," of course under the level
of Mr. Donkin's photographs, and in fields where more than one specimen
can be secured of the "humble primrose."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOANNA R. SEVERN.
HUSKING CREED
[From the Standard, May 28, 1889. Reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890,
vol. ii. p. 105, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 118 (No. 142).]
BHANTWOOD [1889?].
MY DEAR SIR, — I am extremely thankful for the sympathy expressed
in your letter,2 but I fear you have scarcely read enough of Fors to know
the breadth of my own creed or communion. I gladly take the bread,
water, wine, or meat of the Lord's Supper with members of my own family
or nation who obey Him, and should be equally sure it was His giving,
if I were myself worthy to receive it, whether the intermediate mortal
hand were the Pope's, the Queen's, or a hedge-side gipsy's.8 It is not
time that fails me for reading, but strength. I am but yesterday back
out of the grave, and can read little.
Ever yours gratefully,
J. RUSKIN.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF "MUNERA PULVERIS "
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, June 1, 1889. Reprinted in Ruskiniana, part i.,
1890, pp. 118-119 (No. 144). Among the contents of the Gazette of May 27
were : ' ' The National Songs of Ireland : an interview with the Parnellite Tyrtseus
cited from the Pall Mall Gazette is an extract from Mr. Douglas Freshfield's preface
to a catalogue of Alpine photographs by Donkin (exhibited at the Gainsborough
Gallery in 1889). " After studying these photographs," continued Mr. Freehfield,
" taken on some of the wildest pinnacles of the Alps, it is difficult to believe that
any one, outside a table d'hote, can any longer be found to question the magnifi-
cence of the higher panoramas. Yet more difficult is it to believe that in scientific
publications posterior to these photographs, illustrations of mountain phenomena are
still produced which can only mystify the teachers and pupils who use them."]
1 [This and the following references on " Flowers that bloom in the spring "
(a title taken by the Pall Mall Gazette from W. S. Gilbert's Mikado) allude to
a description in the Gazette of a show of spring flowers.]
2 [Asking if Ruskin was a communicant.]
8 [For a note on this letter, see Vol. XXXIII. p. Ixi.]
ARROWS OF THE CHACE 619
(T. D. Sullivan)" ; "The Eggs we Eat : where they come from and how to get them
fresh " ; " Training the Taste for Tea at the Paris Exhibition " ; " The Pope's
Summer Residence"; a column of "Tittle-Tattle"; and various other miscellaneous
items. Search does not, however, explain in any edition of that day's issue now
available the allusion to "Greek ashes." Ruskin's letter appears to be a playful
remonstrance with the Gazette 011 the triviality of its contents — a triviality which
the author of Munera Pulveris found significant of modern "civilization." The
quotation "in their lucid intervals" may refer to the first line of Wordsworth's
Evening Voluntaries — a poem which speaks of " some hour when Pleasure with a sigh
Of languor puts his rosy garland by."]
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
BHANTWOOD, May 28th [1889].
SIR, — I am especially interested by the articles in your yesterday's
issue on Irish music, Danish eggs, French tea, and Greek ashes. But the
"tittle tattle," — mysteries — and references to the Courts of St. James — and
St. Peter, are also extremely worth the attention — not of your own circle
of readers merely, — but even of Words worthian Tories, " in their lucid in-
tervals." What would you say to reprinting the whole number for me? —
(allowing me first to rearrange the several articles a little) — in type as
large as that of Miss Edgeworth's Parent's Assistants; and publishing it
as a small three-volume novel — under the title — suppose — of the Patriot's
Assistant — or The Parisian Cup of Tea — or The Pope's Hermitage — or Gray's
Elegy on a Grecian Urn — or The Modern Adonais — or The British Egg-basket
— or — in fine, I think we shall easily agree about the title, if only we can
about the print ? Mind, I'm quite serious ; I always am serious — if only
people would attend to what I say. I'll publish the book myself, if you'll
allow me ; and meantime believe me always your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
P.S. — I meant to have signed — the] Author of Munera Pulveris — but
you don't seem to know that book, yourself; or, in the kind references
you occasionally make to my Tory sentiments, you would surely have found
a paragraph or two worth — contradicting.
ST. GEORGE'S FARMS
[From the St. James's Gazette (under the heading "Mr. Ruskin and the
Socialists"), June 17, 1889. Reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette, May 12, 1890.
Also in Igdrasil, September 1890, vol. i. p. 349, and thence in Ruskiniana, part i.,
1890, p. 67 (No. 71). Also printed in part — more accurately — as No. 293 in a
Catalogue of Autograph Letters issued by Messrs. Newcome, of Manchester. The
letter was next printed (correctly from the original) in Letters upon Subjects of
General Interest from John Ruskin to Various Correspondents (privately printed,
1892), No. 34, pp. 96-97.]
BBANTWOOD, May 29,31889.
MY DEAR SIR, — Not only am I grateful for your letter and enclosed
bit of newspaper; but they come precisely at the moment when I want
to learn all I can of what has been doing or undoing since I was last at
620 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Sheffield. I will answer the main point you inquire about to-morrow,
having no time to read the article to-day ; but in glancing at it, I see one
statement which should be corrected at once. I am not the owner of the
farm in question : the St. George's Guild is. What legal forms exist,
inconveniencing my action, or yours, I don't know — and never could know
— as I waste no moment of life that I can save in reading the obscure
language of British law ; but assuredly / get no good of the land, but
have, on the contrary, paid constantly annual losses on it. Secondly,
Mr. Riley was no friend of mine. I tried him as an exponent of modern
Liberalism, and was as little pleased with the result as the members of
your league were ! I will conclude my reply to-morrow.1 You may print
this beginning (and the end I shall print myself, if you do not) when and
wherever you like; as anybody else may, whatever I write at any time,
or say — if only they don't leave out the bits they don't like !
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE WELSH LANGUAGE
[From the Pall Mall Gaxette, July 6, 1889, where it is explained : " At the
Berth (Cardiganshire) Eisteddfod, the president of the evening meeting, Mr.
Bonsall, said he had lately asked Mr. Ruskin if he thought it would be well for
the Welsh language to die out and be supplanted by English, and that Mr Ruskin
had replied : — ']
[1889.]
God forbid. The Welsh language is the language of music. There
is no genius about the English language. The Scotch have got all the
poetry, and the Irish all the wit, and how the devil we got Shakespeare
I do not know.
ICELANDIC INDUSTRIES
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, May 14, 1890, where it is said: "A small
exhibition and sale of Icelandic goods was opened yesterday in a room of the
Young Men's Christian Association, Manchester, by Mrs. Sigridr Magnusson, with
the object of raising funds for a girls' high school in Reykjavik. The collection
includes cloth, knitted goods, embroideries, wood carving, and jewellery, and each
department shows a distinctly marked national character. The jewellery exhibited
is particularly interesting. Some of the specimens are of great age and of beautiful
workmanship. Their necklaces and chains, with their simple yet graceful patterns,
might serve as models to English jewellers, showing as they do what good effects
may be produced by simple means."]
[1890.]
MY DEAR MADAM, — I am deeply interested by all the things you have
sent ; some of the silver work is extremely beautiful, and the pieces of
dress alike quaint and becoming. No one can sympathise more earnestly
1 [The second letter, however, if written, was not published by Ruskin or his
correspondents.]
621
than I do in every effort to retain national manners and dress.1 But I am
tired of fighting, as I have done all my life, against the fury of modern
avarice and injustice ; and I can fight now no more. What help I can
give to your school, once established, shall be yours with the truest joy,
and I cannot but hope that you will have no difficulty so far as that is
concerned. . . . Teach your children to be cheerful, busy, and honest ;
teach them sewing, music, and cookery ; and if they want bonnets from
Paris — why, you'll have to send for them.
Ever your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE FALLS OF FOYERS
[From the Times, September 16, 1895, included in a letter, headed ''The Falls
of Foyers : Mr. Ruskin's Opinion," from the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley as Hon. Sec.
of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The
British Aluminium Company was utilising the water and making new roads, etc.
There was much correspondence on the subject in the Times during August,
September, and October, and three hundred petitions were presented to the Inverness
County Council begging it to interfere ; but it declined to do so (Times, October 17
and 18). For a description of the works then in progress, see a letter from Mr.
M. J. B. Baddeley in the Times of October 15.]
BRANTWOOD, August 31, 1895.
DEAR MR. RAWNSLEY, — I have read all the account to Mr. Ruskin, who
listened and feels most indignant at the proposed destruction of the " Falls
of Foyers." 2 He has no words strong enough to express what he feels at
such an iniquity, and is in great sympathy with any steps taken to prevent
it. He says you are welcome to use his name in any way you like, as a
vice-president in the opposition party if necessary, or on your provisional
council. I have read this as he sits beside me as I write, and heartily
applauds each sentence as expressing the wishes he authorised me to ex-
press to you.
Believe me, yours very truly,
JOAN RUSKIN SEVERN.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL
[From the Times, December 19, 1896. The restoration of the Cathedral was
the subject of a long and heated correspondence in the Times during December
1896 and January 1897 ; for a summary of the case, see a leading article in the
issue of December 23. The suggestion of Mr. Philip Webb (taken up by a volun-
tary committee and by the Society of Antiquaries) was to leave the outer skin of
the wall untouched and to renew the rest of it from inside by cutting away and
rebuilding piecemeal ; he held that the mischief was due to settlement of the
1 [Compare the letter on " Right Dress " ; above, p. 492.]
1 [See Vol. XXVI. p. 121, where Ruskin takes them as typical of Scottish
waterfalls.]
622 ARROWS OF THE CHACE
foundations below, and not to weather above (December 5 and 7). The plan of
Mr. Pearson, R.A., architect to the Dean and Chapter, was to replace the decayed
stones and take down and rebuild part of the gables (December 15). Mr. Pearson's
plan was carried out (January 28).]
To the Editor of the " Times "
BRANTWOOD, Dec. 17, 1896.
SIR, — I am desired by Mr. Ruskin to write and ask you " to use all your
influence in preventing one stone of the west front of Peterborough Cathe-
dral from being touched until the matter of needful restoration has been
fully considered by the most competent experts. He says it is one of the
grandest monuments that has ever been left to us of perfectly pure Gothic
architecture,1 and it would be a disgrace to the Nation if any steps are
taken to carry out so monstrous a plan as that last proposed for its destruc-
tion. He is no longer able to fight a battle himself for it; but those who
still can, he hopes will, with all their might, to prevent such an iniquity."
Mr. Ruskin " has always asserted that the mischief was due to the settle-
ment of the foundations below, and, without doubt, the best plan at pre-
sent to adopt is that suggested by the voluntary committee carrying out Mr.
Philip Webb's method to protect, and not Mr. Pearson's plan to demolish."
Believe me, Sir, faithfully yours,
JOAN RUSKIN SEVERN.
P.S. — Mr Ruskin asks me to enclose his card with this letter.
RUSKIN HALL
[From the Times, March 4, 1899. Ruskin College, Oxford, founded in 1899
(see Vol. XXX. p. xli.), was "established in order to bring an education worthy
of a citizen to the door of every man and woman. . . . The work is carried on in
two ways : — (1) By the education at the College ; this is specially intended for
those who show promise of being leaders of working-class opinion, such as work-
ing-men members of Parliament, and officials of Trades Unions and Co-operative
Societies ; by this means they are enabled to come to Oxford for one or two
years and study scientifically the problems which they have to solve. (2) By the
Correspondence School. By means of this all who are interested in the problems
of our own time are enabled to study the subjects taught at Ruskin College, by
home reading in their leisure hours. . . . The Council consists of members drawn
from the University of Oxford, the Co-operative movement, and the Trade Union
movement." Various Trade and Co-operative Societies have made levies in support
of the College. For further particulars, see A Report of Ruskin College, Oxford
(1904).]
BRANTWOOD, March 1, 1899.
Mr. Ruskin received with great pleasure on his eightieth birthday a
photograph of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, and also a letter of congratulation,
which has given him happiness and encouragement, and he desires to
convey his most grateful thanks and best wishes for the success of Ruskin
Hall and its students.
1 [Compare Vol. IX. p. 215, and Vol. XII. p. 35.]
IV
RUSKINIANA
ADDRESSES
EPITAPHS
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC.
CONVERSATIONS
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY AND MARGINALIA
ANECDOTA
ADDRESSES PRESENTED TO RUSKIN
[Bibliographical Note. — The collection in this section of the volume is made
from very many different sources, as specified in notes to the several pieces.
The only previously published work which need here be described is the
second part of the Ruskiniana above mentioned (p. 466).
RUSKINIANA— PART II. (1892)
In Igdrasil during 1891 and 1892 a collection was made of various
reports of Lectures by Ruskiu. The reprints appeared in No. 13 (June
1891), 14 (September),! 15 (December), 16 (March 1892) ; vol. iii. pp. 11-38,
81-104, 161-187, 241-268. The collection was made by Mr. Wedderburn.
In 1892 Mr. Wedderburn reprinted the collection, with additions, in a
privately-issued volume with the following title-page : —
Ruskiniana. | Part II. | Lectures !and Addresses | Reported in the press,
but | not (reprinted in | Collected Works. | Reprinted | For Private
Circulation Only. | 1892.
Royal 8vo, pp. iv. +121-241. Half-title, p. i. Title-page (with imprint in
the centre of the reverse — " Printed by | Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Ld.,
| London and Aylesbury "), pp. iii.-iv. ; Half-title to Part II., p. 121 ; List
of "Lectures, etc.," p. 123; Lectures, pp. 125-241.
Issued in March 1892 in paper wrappers as before (see p. 466) ; lettered
up the back, "Ruskiniana. Part II. — Lectures and Addresses" ; and on
the front cover, "Ruskiniana. | Part II." Ten copies only were printed.
CONTENTS OF " RUSKINIANA— PART II"
1. Addresses on Decorative Colour .
2. Design as Applied to Manufacture
3. The Oxford Museum
4. Thomas Seddon ....
5. The Value of Drawing .
6. Preservation of Italian Pictures .
7. Architectural Carvings .
8. The Study of Art .
9. Venetian Architecture .
10. Religious Art .....
11. Tree Twigs
12. Architecture in France .
13. Competition and Mechanical Art .
14. The Eyre Defence Fund
15. Modern Art .....
16. Trades Unions and Strikes
17. The Three-Legged Stool of Art .
18. Verona and its Rivers .
19. Lectures on Landscape .
20. A Lecture on Stones
21. Communism and Art
22. St. George's Museum
23. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
24. Vivisection
25. A Christmas Greeting .
26. A Drawing-room Lecture
27. Mr. Ruskin's Latest
Pages. In tliis Edition.
125-153 Vol. XII. pp. 474-508
154-156 Vol. XVI. pp. 427-430
157-161 „ pp. 431^36
162-166 Vol. XIV. pp. 464-470
167-175 Vol. XVI. pp. 437-447
176 , p. 448
177-179 , pp. Iv.-lix.
180-184 pp. 455-460
185-190 pp. 461-468
191-192 , pp. 469-471
193-196 Vol. VII. pp. 467-478
197-199 Vol. XIX. pp. 461-464
200-202 „ pp. 465-468
203-205 Vol. XVIII. pp. 552-554
206 See Vol. XIX. p. 196
207-209 Vol. XVII. pp. 536-539
210 Vol. XIX. p. 469
211-217 See Vol. XIX. p. 427
218-224 See Vol. XXII. p. 5
225-226 Vol. XXVI. pp. 563-565
227-229 Vol. XXX. pp. 306-309
230-233 „ pp. 311-314
234 Below, p. 631
235 „ p. 643
236-237 „ p. 632
238-239 Vol. XXXII. pp. 535-538
240-241 *
* This is merely a short report from the St. James's Budget of March 16, 1883, of
Ruskin's first lecture on The Art of England (Vol. XXXIII.) ; a note from the
Report, containing a remark not included in the published lecture, is printed at
page 286 of that volume.]
ADDRESSES
I. LECTURES AT ETON (1873, 1875, 1877)
II. PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (1877)
III. A CHRISTMAS GREETING (1881)
IV. THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY
1. 1878
2. l882
V. AN ADDRESS TO "ACADEMY GIRLS" (1884)
VI. VIVISECTION (1884)
628 RUSKINIANA
writers, noticing its peculiarities in order to show the influence it exer-
cised on art both in ancient and modern times, and to prove how vastly
superior are all the works of the Supreme Creator, even in their most
minute points, to the best and noblest imitations of even the most exalted
genius.
THE BEAK OF THE CHOUGH * (1873)
In his second lecture, Mr. Ruskin took for his leading subject "The
Beak of the Chough," though he also traced the different formations of the
beak in other members of the crow tribe, and added illustrations to ex-
plain his meaning from various families of birds, notably the pelican, the
cockatoo, and toucan, as examples of the extremes of variation in the
position of the chin of birds. He remarked that the beak of the crow
suggested to the ancient Greeks the form of several instruments ; also even
the shape of the ancient ship. He then proceeded to consider the effect
of nature on art, observing that the secret of art is to represent the life,
and that not merely the body, but especially the soul; he instanced
Michael Angelo as the head of the material school, Giotto of the spiritual.
He concluded by making a sweeping criticism of the art of the present day,
characterising the works of Gustave Dore 2 as " the slimy efflux of the waters
of the Styx" (sic), especially condemning par exemple that artist's illustration
of La Fontaine's fable of the Lark and her Young, which he showed to
be quite marred by the " pitchfork of a foot " belonging to the bird,
" stuck into " so prominent a position as it is, and finally said that he
found on examination the Royal Academy of the present year to be
wanting in three very essential particulars, viz., that there is no work
representing the national manner of rejoicing (for though we have "eaten
an indigestible quantity of humble pie in respect of the Alabama claims," 3
yet there is cause in many respects for national rejoicing), no work
commemorating any national deed, no work immortalising the religious
feeling of the country at large.
(Mr. Donaldson was Secretary.)
THE SPANISH CHAPEL AT FLORENCE* (1875)
On Saturday, November 27th (1875), Professor Ruskin gave a lecture
on " The Spanish Chapel at Florence " to an audience numbering nearly
200. The subject was one on which Professor Ruskin was at that time
lecturing at Oxford, and his keen appreciation of it did not fail to rouse
a corresponding enthusiasm on the part of the audience. To those who
had heard him before, the lecturer seemed to have lost no whit of his
grace and tenderness ; while nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of those
1 [For this lecture, see the chapter on "The Chough" now added to Love's Meinie
(Vol. XXV. pp. 152 *«?.).]
2 [See Love's Meinie, $ 182 (Vol. XXV. p. 170 and n.).l
3 [Compare Vol. XXII. p. 140, and Vol. XXV. p. 170.]
* ("This lecture was a repetition, doubtless with some variations, of the last in
the Oxford course entitled "Studies in the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds"
(Vol. XXII. p. 492).]
ADDRESSES 629
who were at last enabled to realise what they had but been able to guess
from his published lectures — his wonderful power and beauty of expression
combined with a sublimity of thought, which rendered every word he
spoke of surpassing interest even to the superficial hearer.
The chair was taken by the Provost.
(Z. J. Jones, Secretary.)
[The following are reports of the same lecture from the Eton College Chronicle
(December 15, 1875) arid the Etonian (December 2, 1875) respectively: — ]
For some time past we have all been looking forward with eager expec-
tation to Saturday, November 27th, the date fixed for Professor Ruskin's
long-awaited lecture. It has come and gone. The Professor has again
been amongst us, and Eton may now reckon among the things of the past
another of those treats which from their very rarity are all the more to be
appreciated.
The Library had been arranged in such a manner as to admit a larger
number than usual, and every available space in the room was taken up
by an audience consisting of Eton boys and masters, together with a large
contingent of ladies, while the place of honour nearest the lecturer was
assigned to members of the Literary Society.
Turning to the lecture itself, we shall not attempt to reproduce that
which when clothed in print, instead of in Mr. Ruskin's delightful eloquence,
could not but suffer irretrievably by the exchange. Such a task would be
at once hopeless and thankless. Suffice it, then, to say that what Professor
Ruskin told us of Florence and its Spanish Chapel must have roused in
the many, to whom that fair city has hitherto been but a name, a desire
to make it a reality, while in the minds of the favoured few to whom
already "continjit adire Corinthum" it must have revived pleasant recol-
lections, and suggested new ideas. We imagine, however, that the interest
of the lecture centred not a little in the incidental points which the Pro-
fessor made in his frequent digressions from the main subject; as when
he breathed defiance against Niebuhr, "half Polonius, half rat," or deplored
the officious interference of the College clock to save that historian from
the force of his epithets ; when again, not even " our glorious Constitution "
could find immunity behind the barriers of its grandeur, and the unfortunate
British tourist was mercilessly, yet amusingly satirised. Finally, the deep
feeling and earnest convictions which characterized much of the lecture
cannot but have left some impression on those who heard them, by sug-
gesting new matter for thought and reflection.
In his concluding remarks, Professor Ruskin expressed the pleasure he
always felt in coming down to Eton and lecturing to the boys. Let us
assure him that this pleasure is not on his side only, but entirely mutual ;
and let us hope that the interest which he awakened in so many on
Saturday last will not be allowed to be dormant, but that ere long we may
again have him amongst us ; a wish which will, we are sure, be echoed
by all who heard him on his last visit.
On Saturday, November 27th, Professor Ruskin gave his long-looked- for
lecture to a large audience, among whom we were glad to see a considerable
680 RUSKINIANA
number of present Etonians. The subject, as stated on the tickets, was
" The Spanish Chapel at Florence," but though this formed the basis of
the lecture, it did not prevent Mr. Ruskin from making observations in
his well-known style upon various topics, apparently far removed from his
nominal theme. It would be impossible to give any summary of such a
discursive lecture ; the attention with which it was received from first to
last will sufficiently attest its merits. Many and various were the comments
upon it, according as the Professor tickled the fancy, or excited the wrath,
or trampled upon, or exalted, the hobby of each individual. Some may
be worth subjoining. To begin with the adverse criticism, " I could not
quite understand the construction of that last hyperbole " reached our ears
as we gained the door. " Might as well have had Macfarlane over again,"
growled some unsympathetic hearer. " If he had only stuck to his subject,
and not abused the British Constitution." "What business had he to talk
about rain, I should like to know." " I disagreed with every word he
said." These were, however, far outweighed by the enthusiastic praises we
heard on all sides, which, however, are not so easy to describe, chiefly
consisting as they did in single epithets with unlimited notes of admiration
— Beautiful ! glorious ! ! superb ! ! " Uniting the fervour of emotion with
the majesty of repose."
But the effect of the lecture must not be judged by mere words and
ejaculations ; it might have been found in the grave faces and saddened
yet strengthened hearts of those few who penetrated into the inner feeling
of the lecture, to whom it gave many a thought too deep for words, and
upon "whom its influence cannot but work for good.
It is by these and such as these that a lecturer is repaid for his trouble ;
let us assure Mr. Ruskin that such hearers were not wanting to him on
Saturday night.
STREAMS OF WESTMORLAND1 (1877)
On Saturday, December 8th (1877), Professor Ruskin delivered a lecture
on the "Streams of Westmorland." The lecturer was introduced by the
Provost, who occupied the chair. Professor Ruskin commenced by an-
nouncing himself as " Professor of Common Sense," in which capacity he
proceeded to examine some of the theories of modern geologists. He
complained that they failed to give him the information he required con-
cerning the Cumberland Lakes, and that while telling him what that part
of the country was like thousands of years ago, and through what stages
it had passed to its present perfection, yet these were unable to say how
the beautiful lake scenery was painted, or what chisel had shaped the
outline of the mountains.
Passing from the general to the particular, the lecturer proceeded to
bring before his audience several points in which modern geologists failed
to satisfy him. First he had never heard a satisfactory explanation of
1 [See chapter xii. (" Yewdale and its Streamlets") in Deucalion, VoL XXVI.
pp. 243 seq.]
ADDRESSES 631
the fact that deep pools, never encumbered with stones, might be found
between two series of rapids which were thus encumbered; and he did not
understand how streams could be cutting out the basins of lakes, which
they tended rather to fill up. Secondly, he had tested experimentally the
statements of geologists that the irregularity of adjacent strata may be
accounted for by lateral pressure; and on comparing the irregularity pro-
duced by lateral pressure in adjacent streaks of white and crimson dough
with a section of geological strata, he had found it radically different.
Moreover, he doubted the possibility of water scooping out rocks, because
honey would not scoop out tea spoons. Thirdly, he could not see how the
explanation of denudation accounted for the fact that the outline of the
Cumberland Hills is wholly irrespective of the various consistency of the
rocks of which they are composed. After thus disposing of modern geo-
logists and their theories, Professor Ruskin concluded with an eloquent
appeal to his hearers not to disregard the beauties of nature which lie
close and plain before us in futile examination of the really insoluble
problem so rashly attempted by scientific men. " How far more improv-
ing to the body, to the mind, and to the soul is the contemplation of a
squirrel in its native woods than that of its skeleton, mouldering in a
closet." Such was the burden of the lecturer's eloquent peroration, which
he entwined with an anecdote of the discovery by himself of a very in-
teresting inscription in Venice,1 and an invective against Greek terms in
English science,2 which might be paralleled by the introduction into modern
Greek of such a scientific hybrid as " Nastibeasteum." It is unnecessary
to say that Mr. Ruskin was attentively listened to and enthusiastically
applauded, and that the power of his language and kindly interest which
he took in his audience made this as welcome as the preceding (and we
hope we may add his subsequent) lectures to the Society.
The Provost offered the unanimous thanks of the House and audience
to the lecturer.
(J. K. Stephen, Secretary.)
II
THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
[A speech delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals. From the Daily News, July 11, 1877- The report was re-
printed in a note in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. ii. p. 186. Also in Igdrasil,
March 1892, vol. iii. pp. 263-264, and thence in Ruskiniana, part ii., 1892, p. 234
(No. 23).]
Mr. Ruskin, in supporting the adoption of the report, said as he was
somewhat concerned in the studies of the scientific world it might be
thought that he sympathised in the resistance offered, not without some
1 [For this inscription on S. Giacomo di Rialto, see Vol. XXI. p. 268.]
1 [On this subject compare Vol. XXV. p. 200.]
632 RUSKINIANA
ground of reason, to some of the more enthusiastic and, he feared in some
respects, exaggerated and sentimental actions of the Society. He pleaded
in the name of poor animals, that none of them should act too much on
the feeling of pity, or without making a thoroughly judicial inquiry. In
looking at the report, he found part of the Society's admirable evidence
mixed up with sentimental tales of fiction, and other means of exciting
mere emotion, which had caused them to lose power with those who had
the greatest influence in the prevention of the abuses which the Society
desired to check. The true justice of their cause lay in the relations
which men had had with animals from the time when both were made.
They had endeavoured to prevent cruelty to animals ; they had not enough
endeavoured to promote affection for animals. He thought they had had
too much to do in the police courts, and not enough in the field and the
cottage garden. As one who was especially interested in the education of
the poor, he believed that he could not educate them on animals, but
that he would educate them by animals. He trusted to the pets of
children1 for their education just as much as to their tutors. He rejoiced
in the separate organization of the Ladies' Committee, and looked to it to
give full extent and power to action which would supersede all their
expensive and painful disputable duties. Without perfect sympathy with
the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education,
could possibly be of any use. In concluding, he pleaded for an expansion
of the protection extended by the Society to wild birds.2
Ill
A CHRISTMAS GREETING
[From Soulby's Ulverston Advertiser, January 13, 1881. Reprinted in Ruskiniana,
part ii., 1892, pp. 236-237 (No. 25). The following sentences from the Advertiser
explain the occasion on which these remarks were made : —
"Professor Ruskin, of Brantwood, on Thursday last, gave a sumptuous dinner
in the schoolroom, Coniston, to all the children of the place and neighbourhood,
to the number of three hundred and fifteen. The event was one of imusual interest
to the parents, as well as to the children, making as it did a new era in the character
of our Christmas festivities. The day was opportune — Old Christmas Day — and the
weather most auspicious, indicative more of early spring than the depth of winter.
' ' A flag from the church tower signalled to the children the coming festival, and
a little before the time for assembling, troops of the young expectants might be
seen wending their way to the place of rendezvous, converted for the nonce into a
banquet-hall of a very attractive kind.
"At twelve, Mr. Ruskin, accompanied by Mrs. Severn, Miss Gale, and others,
arrived ; and forthwith the children were marshalled in, under their respective
heads, to the places assigned to them.
1 [See, in Vol. XXXVII., lluskin's letters on the "Friends of Living Creatures"
Society.]
* [On this subject, see Vol. XXX. p. xxxv. ».]
ADDRESSES 638
" The proceedings commenced with singing the hymn ' Great God ! and wilt
Thou condescend ' ; then a few words of introduction from the incumbent ; next
Moody and Sankey's hymn 'Shall we gather at the river?' was sung in admirable
time and with much feeling ; after which Mr. Ruskin kindly addressed the children
in something like the following words."]
I had been thinking, my dear children, what to say to you, and I felt
it extremely difficult to shape my thoughts aright; but the remarks which
have just been offered, and the hymn which you have so well sung, have
removed the difficulty, and I feel it a pleasure to say a few words to
you. 'Tis true, I wish to see children happy, and to be happy is to do
what's right and good. Christmas time, of all times, is most calculated
to make young people happy, because of the great event celebrated at
this gladsome season — when the infant Saviour was born, that He might
make all people happy, and especially the little ones whom He so much
loves. But, to be happy, my dear young friends, you must try to make
others happy, your parents, and those who have charge over you, by
seeking to do what is right and good. I was noticing, in the hymn you
sang, the words, "Shall we gather at the river, where bright angels' feet
have trod ? " which seem to carry one on to the future instead of thinking
of the present. Not only have angels trod this earth in old times, but
they do tread it even now, for they are often about us, helping us in
many ways ; present at our tables, and also at our beds ; and we ought
to think of this, and rejoice that we have such heavenly companionship.
I was much interested this morning in reading the account of the angels
visiting the shepherds of Bethlehem, and telling them about the infant
Saviour born there. You know what shepherds are, and what are their
duties. The children of our towns, many of them at least, have never
seen a shepherd or a sheep, or beautiful green fields, or mountain scenery.
But you are living in the midst of them; and you ought to be very
happy and very kind one towards another. It is a strange thing that
shepherds were more honoured than the " wise men from the East " ; l
for these were simply guided by a star, and directed to make inquiry
where Christ was to be born ; but the shepherds were told by an angel
the precise place where they were to find Him.2 And He was born in
Bethlehem. You, perhaps, know that that means " the house of Bread " :
singular thing that He, who is the Bread of Life,3 should have the house
of bread for His birthplace. He wishes us to be happy here, as well as
hereafter. See how He looked after the wants of those around Him.
He fed five thousand men with bread. He gave to His disciples bread,
and fish, already cooked on the margin of the lake of Galilee.4 You have
your lake here, and fish swimming in the lake. So you can imagine the
disciples feeding upon what He had supplied — and how thankful they
must have been. I am glad to give you this feast, to help you to be
happy and to encourage you to be good. Then, again, I see in that
beautiful hymn we are taught to pray, "Jesus, here from sin deliver," —
Matthew ii. 1-10.]
'Luke ii. 8-16.]
[John vi. 35.]
[Matthew xiv. ; John xxi.]
634 RUSKINIANA
that is what we want to be delivered from, our sins. You know Jesus
came as "the Lamb of God, who taketh a.vay the sin of the world."1
This was what John the Baptist said, and so we must look to the Saviour
to deliver us from sin. It is right we should be punished for the sins
which we have done ; but God loves us, and wishes to be kind to us, and
to help us, that we may not wilfully sin. So try, my dear children, to be
good and kind to those about you and over you. Remember our Saviour
said, " I stand at the door and knock ; if any man (or child) open the
door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me," 2 — that
is, He will make us happy, if we but receive Him in our hearts, and
will minister to our present as well as our future wants. And now, children,
I hope you will all enjoy yourselves.
IV
ADDRESSES TO THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY
1. 1878s
The Arundel Society is now, both by numbers and by the rank, influence,
and intellectual position of its members, not only one of the most impor-
tant but also one of the most conspicuous bodies in Europe concerned in
the furtherance of the Arts.
But I am not sure that hitherto — though it has existed for some thirty
years4 — its objects have been clearly defined. I am sure it has not with
complete energy urged their accomplishment.
It, I say — the Society. I am not speaking of its Council. Whether we
have failed in our duties to you, or not, I have not any intention to-day
of making apologies. Perhaps, of all the members of the Council, the
one now addressing you most needs your pardon : — but permit me to say
that the chief fault in any of us has not been neglecting your interests,
but in failing to remind you of your responsibilities. Nay, we have per-
haps sometimes, tacitly — but too frankly, assumed that you were all in-
terested persons, and none of you responsible ones ; that you were only a
company gathered — like a commercial one, for the sake of what it could
gain ; not a scientific Society, for what it could ascertain, preserve, or com-
municate.
So far as we have this thought of you, I am sure we have wronged
1 [John i. 29.]
1 [Revelation iii. 20.]
8 [These notes for an address to the Arundel Society are printed from MS.
sheets at Brantwood ; they appear to be incomplete. The second address of 1882
(below, p. 637) says that it was four years since he last addressed the Society — a
remark which enables the date of the present address to be fixed as July 1878.
For Ruskin's connexion with the Arundel Society, see Vol. IV. p. xliv.]
* [The Society was founded in 1849 : see again Vol. IV. p. xliv.]
ADDRESSES 635
you. So far as we have acted on such thoughts, we have injured you.
Your interests, in the end, would have been best promoted by steady
mindfulness of your functions.
The Arundel Society, as I have always conceived, — and as, I trust, many
other members of it from the beginning understood, — was founded, first,
to preserve record of good art that was perishing, and secondly, to make
more general the knowledge of good art that was too little known. It
was not founded with the view of obtaining for each of its members more
than twenty shillings' worth of coloured prints for twenty shillings — though
that may be an agreeable result and reward of its operations. But it was
never its first object — any more than that of the Bible Society was to
get handsome Bibles for themselves. The Arundel Society proposed — as
I repeat — to copy the illuminated manuscripts of sacred art before they
perished — and to place what multiplications might be possible of them in
the hands of those who had never read, and never more could read the
originals. The conscientious fulfilment of so noble a design would, I am
persuaded, bring more true pleasure to the greater number of our members
than the mere enrichment of their own folios, or decoration of their own
walls. But I believe that both the riches and the decoration would by
such disinterested efforts be made for ourselves more covetable — and more
brilliant.
For my own part, I have always been desirous, and I think I have the
concurrent feeling of the Council with me on this point, that even the
definitely, so to speak, educational work of our Society, should be distinctly
separated from its conservative one : and that, in this crisis of European
politics, and this opportunity of European peace, the work of record and
rescue should much surpass — if not for the moment even supersede — the
processes of publication. For I beg you very earnestly to observe how
these conditions of publication restrain your Council's power, no less than
the details of it occupy their time and thought. To superintend and
correct the engraving and chromo-lithotint is often far more difficult —
always far less useful ultimately — than superintending the artist's copy from
the original work. But while we have so much publication in our hands,
more than half our power is spent in such details; and farther, in order
to reduce a drawing to publication-size our copy is made comparatively
valueless.
Nothing can be rightly copied but on its own scale. I need not tell
the members of this Society that every good painter's mode of execution
varies with the size of his design: and that it would have been just as
impossible for Sir Joshua or Velasquez to have shown their peculiar powers
in miniature painting as for Angelico to have extended his minutely deli-
cate multitudes over a colossal canvas. You only represent, you only can
represent, any picture justly, by absolutely accepting the conditions of its
situation — its magnitude, and its method. And I believe all the members
of the Council are agreed, after the experience we have had of the efforts
of even the most intelligent draughtsmen to remedy in their copies the
accidents of time, that we must make it henceforward an absolute rule
that our copies shall represent only the existing remains of the picture, and
by no means attempt a conjectural restoration of it.1 But of course, if we
1 [Compare Aphorism xix. in Laws of Fesole, Vol. XV. p. 363.]
686 RUSKINIANA
gave orders for the execution of drawings such as these, other drawings
would have to be prepared from them afterwards for publication, the cost
of the Society's operations would be increased by at least one third, and
the annual money value of its publications diminished in that proportion.
The money value, I say. The intrinsic value would assuredly be greater
than it is now, and the power of correction, by reference to an accurate
copy, quite invaluable to earnest students.
The only way I see of meeting these difficulties satisfactorily, and
justly, is by a straightforward appeal to the members of this Society to
express their wishes to us individually, and to give us, those of them who
concur in what I hope may be stated by me as the opinion of their
Council, their help individually. The publications should continue to be
issued at their present rate, but there are surely some of our members
who would further subscribe to a separate copying fund to be spent in
simply acquiring facsimiles — so far as possible, of the works which are
likeliest soon to perish. And now let me approach the business from
another point of view.
I do not know how far the idea of art-patronage distinctly enters, as a
practical motive, into the habit of giving large prices for pictures, which
characterises our time.1 But the system is, in fact, as ruinous to the painter
as destructive of your own interests, and I feel myself standing on abso-
lutely sure ground in stating to you that it is impossible for you ever to
see a good picture again on the walls of your Academy while you pay
such prices as those into which you have been lately urged by the dealers.
The proportion to the old and proper prices paid to the noble artists
whom we once possessed, may be expressed to you by one fact. The
commission at ten per cent, to the dealer, on the sale of any average
Turner drawing, is now about three times as much as Turner got for
making the drawing. And the fatality to your schools of art is quite
irresistible. The bribe is so enormous for success that the most con-
scientious of painters cannot resist it. He can get his ten thousand a
year, if he hits the public fancy. And his only concern is to hit it. And
on these tenns his life becomes a luxurious idleness, and his work a
vulgar exhibition, and I speak with entire deliberation — and in great sorrow
— when I tell you there is not, at this instant, on the walls of your
whole Academy, one picture of sincere and enduring quality, nor while you
pay such prices will you ever see one again. And now observe on the
other hand ; your Council are entirely unable to carry out the intended
functions of this Society, because, while these enormous prices are given
for so-called original art, which is wholly worthless, only a pittance can
be offered to an artist who would devote himself to faithful copying. A
picture executed with cleverness enough to catch the public eye — and to
open its purse — and able in the present market to fetch its two hundred
or three hundred pounds — can be dashed off in a couple of days' work —
a hundred pounds a day ; say roughly three thousand a year is an easily
attainable income by any ordinarily clever artist who is dishonest or weak
enough to seek it. But no moderately accurate copy can be made of any
good historical picture — with less than three months' labour — faithful and
1 [For other references to this subject, see Vol. XVI. pp. 82, 83.]
ADDRESSES 687
skilful ; and for that three months of useful and honest art your Council
think it much if they venture to pay a hundred pounds. Can you wonder
that, on such terms, we get no clever or powerful painter to work for us.
Every man who has any real gift sells his soul to the dealers ; — or at best
to popularity and a house in the West End ; and we can only employ, to
render the work of Giotto — of Luini — and of Tintoret — men who for the
most part have not essential ability enough for the work at all — or if they
have, are driven to every sort of expedient to get their daily bread at the
prices now given.
Now, if you will only put it in our power to offer something like
fair prices for fair talent, I am persuaded that we can produce for you
drawings altogether different from any copyist's work yet seen. I speak
to you in the name of the honest copyists, because, I am bold to say, I
have been one myself. The power of accuracy and habits of attention
are not always found in equal degree in men of true artistic sensibility.
The man who can copy best is often pained by the efforts of produc-
ing original design, just as the man who designs with facility is often
too conceited and too inattentive to copy with success. Give the same
moderate, just pay to both, and you will have the original work guarded
from vanity ; and the copy animated by genius.
What ai-e you to do with such copies? you will ask. Do you think
that a group of figures by Perugino, or Luini, as beautiful in many respects
as the original, would not be a better decoration for your drawing-rooms
than an oil picture such as you are likely now to get for them — of an old
gentleman with his family late at a party — and a drowned child and a
starving dog tied to a mast?
2. 1882 i
Mr. Ruskin, who looked fairly well, commenced by saying he had had
a great joy lately. The British Museum authorities had allowed him to
examine their gems, and to number them, as he wanted, for his Sheffield
Catalogue.2 He said : " It is four years since I had the pleasure of speak-
ing in this room, and it appears to me there has been great quietness
in the meetings ever since I left. Everything seems to have gone on
better, and much more smoothly, since I left, and I think you have done
very wrong in re-electing me.3 Everything has gone on perfectly and
beautifully since I ceased to attend the meetings.
1 [This is a report of an address delivered by Ruskin at the annual meeting of
the Arundel Society, Old Bond Street, on June 22, 1882, Lord Elcho in the
chair. After the formal business had been concluded, Ruskin was called upon by
the chairman to address the meeting — which consisted of about six members of the
Council, the Secretary, one lady, and some half-dozen gentlemen visitors, of whom
Mr. Faunthorpe was one. Ruskin's words were taken down, as nearly as possible
verbatim, by Mr. Faunthorpe, who placed his manuscript at the disposal of Mr.
Wise for publication in an Appendix to Letters from John Ruskin to Rev. J. P.
Faunthorpe, edited by Thomas J. Wise, 1896, vol. ii. pp. 93-97.]
1 [Nothing answering to this has been found among Ruskin's memoranda.]
1 [On the Council of the Society.]
688 RUSKINIANA
"In this room are many very great treasures of Art, and I quite agree
with Lord Elcho that they are not sufficiently seen of men.1 We are insured,
I believe, for £14,000, and what we possess should certainly be rendered
far more accessible.2 These pictures are records of work quite precious in
every way, but especially in the steady value they bear in their protest
against many tendencies of modern Art. In the direction in which modern
Art is advancing I observe, with keenly increasing regret, the want of
seriousness, the want of any set purpose, or, indeed, of any purpose at all.
"In this year's Academy, for example, this stricture seems to me
to apply to nearly every picture. The only picture that pretends to any
historic accuracy is Marks' ( Lord Say brought before Jack Cade.' 3 The
strangest tendency of modern English Art, and one from which, unfortu-
nately, the Pre-Raphaelite School is not exempt, is towards affectation.
Now all the pictures of the great times are absolutely free from affectation
of any kind whatever. Even our caricature is not free from it. A picture,
Munkacsy's ' Christ before Pilate/ 4 exhibited just opposite to these rooms
for instance, is better than anything I ever expected to see in modern
Art at all. In many points it is nearly as good as Tintoret.
" All the pictures of the great times contain certain attitudes known to
be beautiful, and these their painters were content to reproduce. These
attitudes originated in Byzantine Art, afterwards passing over to Italian.
There is no seeking in any of them to attract attention by invention of
new position or attitude.
"When these pictures, the copies of which surround us on these walls,
were painted, the artist took his place in the school, and did his best,
throwing his whole life and soul into his work. The subjects were all
ready to his hand. But now if any man has any real power he is im-
pelled first to weary himself in search for a subject, and then for a new
method of treating it. But the grand subjects of the older artists were
well suited to any picture, to any power. There is no affectation in one
of them. That is the rock on which our modern Art is undeniably wreck-
ing itself.
" We certainly ought to be possessed of a gallery in which we might be
able to exhibit the treasures we own, now hidden away, it seems to me,
altogether from the view of men. But we have, by their production, done
good work in more ways than one. We have enabled M. Griiner and
others to educate a set of German workmen able to do anything tenderly
and perfectly, far better, indeed, than I ever anticipated we should have
been able to do. We are going on with our work, and we believe in it.
"There is a great deal of Art talk in modern drawing-rooms. Much
of this might be rendered effective of good if those who know so much
already would make a point of seeing what we have accomplished, and
1 [Matthew vi. 1.]
2 [On the dissolution of the Society, its drawings were deposited in the National
Gallery, where they are now (1908) exhibited in the basement.]
8 [No. 242 in the Academy of 1882. For another reference to the picture, see
Art of England, § 74 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 317).]
4 [Exhibited at the Conduit Street Galleries : see a Descriptive Account of the
Picture issued in April 1882. The rooms of the Arundel Society were then at
24 Old Bond Street.]
ADDRESSES 639
would, when they journey abroad, look out for things worthy our attention,
and ask us to reproduce them.
" The picture of a girl in the Grosvenor, ridiculed in Punch as A — lass !
had great power in it — might have been anything, in fact — but was spoilt
by affectation.1
"I thank you," etc.
AN ADDRESS TO "ACADEMY GIRLS"
(February 1884)
[In a letter given in the preceding volume (p. xlix.), Ruskin, in describing a
day's doings in London in February 1884, writes: "Into National Gallery by half-
past eleven — went all over it, noting things for lecture to the Academy girls on
Saturday." Some students at the Royal Academy had asked him for tickets for
his lecture on "The Storm-Cloud." He replied that the lecture would be of no
particular interest to them ; but would they think him very forward if he invited
himself to take a cup of tea with them and talk over their art-studies? The tea-
party was held, and in return he invited his hosts, and any other girl students they
might choose to bring with them, to tea with Mr. and Mrs. Severn and himself at
Herne Hill. It was on this latter occasion that the informal address, here printed,
was given. The report is taken from the Boston Herald (U.S.A.) of June 28, 1884.
Another, but less full, account of the address, by Marion Reid, appeared in the
Bristol Times and Mirror of April 7, and the Sunday Sun, April 8, 1900. The
latter writer adds that at the conclusion of the address one of the party said,
" ' I hope you will shake hands with us all, Mr. Ruskin.' ' Why, certainly, my
dear,' replied the Professor, with that charming smile which no beard, however
ragged, could conceal. And so the whole party filed past, and each had a warm
hand-shake. I even heard afterwards that some right-hand gloves were thence-
forth hung up as trophies, accompanied with a leaf of laurel — such is the enthusiasm
of youth.' ]
" I have long wished," he said, " to meet you, but of course could not
initiate an interview, as it might seem that I desired to interfere with the
teaching you get under the Royal Academicians, which would never do.
Before we begin, I want to try and find out what school you have studied
in. For that purpose I have noted down some pictures at the National
Gallery, and if any of you have copied any of them, please hold up your
hands."
One or two hands were held up during the course of his criticism, and
he nodded approvingly ; but, on the whole, it seemed the students had
neither copied nor studied very deeply the great examples of painting
which he brought specially to their notice.
1 [No. 16 in the Summer Exhibition of 1882, " Alas ! " by H. Schmalz. Cari-
catured, with other "Grosveuor Gems," in Punch, June 24, 1882 (vol. 82, p. 300):
"No. 16. A — lass! quite so ! Also a — lack — of a good deal."]
640 RUSKINIANA
" Now, the first work I shall refer to," he said, " is one of the grandest
at the National Gallery — ' The Three Graces Adoring the Bust of Hymen/ l
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. I don't say that it is the best picture ever
{minted, by any means, and I don't say that Reynolds does not go wrong
sometimes. His ' Snake in the Grass,' for instance, is exaggerated in chiaro-
scuro and colour, but when he goes wrong he almost seems to do it on
.purpose. Then, there is Gainsborough's 'English Family.' This is a com-
position full of dignity and simplicity. It represents just our English
family — the average English husband, average sweet English wife, slightly
above the average English daughter, and a nice boy. This work is well
worthy of your attention. It is well worth the while of students also to
copy parts of Paolo Veronese's ' Vision of St. Helena ' and the ' Family of
Darius/ because of their splendid workmanship.2 Take any square post or
bit of drapery ; it will show you how to lay the colour on ; Perugino's
'Tobias and the Angel'3 will give you an example of absolute purity of
drawing with the keenest sense of colour. I would not recommend you to
look at anything of Holbein's few colours ; not that he could not colour,
but he did not choose to. Neither would he condescend to fleeting
expression ; he preferred repose. You should copy Holbein's drawings
which you can get from the Autotype Company.
" What works do you chiefly copy for practice and for premiums at the
Academy ? "
" Principally Vandyke, Velasquez, and Murillo," replied one of the
students.
" Well," said the Professor, " Vandyke will not do you much good.
He can, however, teach you one thing, how to draw and how to arrange
hands — a most important thing, and one in which all great masters excel.
No amount of the study of the bones of the hands will teach you this —
but only careful study and observation of nature.
" One thing necessary to a high and noble perfection in art is that
artists must be pure and good in their lives. Some people may tell you
this is not so, because there have been artists who have not been moral
in their lives who yet have painted great pictures. This is true in a way,
for men with strong constitutions and the artistic faculty have done great
work, but they have never attained to the purest and best eminence.
There are different ideas of morality. A man may be moral and yet do a
great many things that would be disapproved of by Mrs. Grundy. But
what I mean by a moral life is one directed by a good and honest purpose.
You must have a kindly, loving heart and large sympathy.
"For more than five-and-twenty years of my life I would not believe
that women could paint pictures,4 and all history seemed to be on the side
1 [For other references to this picture (No. 79), see Vol. XIV. p. 472, and
Vol. XIX. p. 3. The "Snake in the Grass" (or "Love unbiudiug the zone of
Beauty") is No. 885; for Gainsborough's "English Family/' see Vol. XXXIII.
p. 376 n.]
2 [The "St. Helena" is No. 1041. For numerous other references to the
"Darius" (No. 294), see General Index.]
3 [One of the side compartments in No. 288 ; for other references to it, see
General Index.]
* [Compare Vol. XIV. p. 208.]
ADDRESSES 641
of this conviction. One learns vaguely of a daughter of Titian who
painted, but one never sees anything she ever did. But I was wrong in
that established conviction of mine ; women can paint.
"Of course," he went on, "there was Rosa Bonheur to correct me, but
she only developed in her art a woman's somewhat morbid love of animals,
coupled with some Landseer-like talent. Landseer studied and loved dogs,
but Rosa Bonheur's feelings for animals were, I think, more akin to the
menagerie keeper's love. Landseer was not so much an artist as one
who studied dogs and knew their ways. Rosa Bonheur paints in a clever
grey French style, and in a masterly kind of a way, more pleasing, per-
haps, than masterly.1 I knew a young lady with a great talent for paint-
ing animals. She studied London cab horses, and went down into the
cellars and studied rats, and she kept a furious parrot and a lot of dogs,
and made herself generally disagreeable; but it all came to nothing. But
coming back to the question of woman's capacity in art, let me confess
that I am quite subjugated, converted, my ideas entirely overthrown by
Mrs. Butler's (Miss Elizabeth Thompson) ' Waterloo.'2 At first I thought
she might only have a woman's love for cavalry officers and cavalry
chargers, but after I had seen the picture and knew her, I saw a great
many of her sketches, and found her to be a great artist, and I have
now the profoundest admiration for her. Since she made a name we
have had several women artists, all distinguished in their different ways
— Mrs. Allingham, Miss Greenaway, Miss Alexander, and Miss Trotter.3
There are many clever, brilliant girls who take to art from ambition, but
their place is rather in society or on the stage than in the studio.
Ambition to shine in the theatre or in society is not the disposition that
makes an artist; you should have the disposition of a nun, and too much
sense to become one. I never recommend girls not to get married, though
I think marriage need not be the mission of all. I think a painter's life
is a very happy one, even if you don't make much money or obtain great
fame. Most girls think it very nice to be married, but I should think to
be an artist is quite as happy a life. The greatest joy in life, it seems to
me, is when you feel that your pencil is obeying your will. Women,
above all, should have infinite patience. Men might be impatient and do
good work — women never. For instance, Rubens and other great artists
often painted furiously. Women were meant to endure and put up with
everything; that is their mission. At the same time, I think some of
you may well find something else to do beside — or as well as — making
puddings and sweeping up other people's messes."
Questioned as to making notes and sketches of visits to picture gal-
leries, the Professor said: —
"When you go into a gallery, always come away with a coloured
note ; it may be a very imperfect one, but it will be better than any-
thing you can carry away in your head. Do not think of light and
shade ; think of shadow simply as darker or lighter colours.4 Do not trust
1 [For other references to Rosa Bonheur, see Vol. XIV. pp. 173, 174 ; and for
Landseer, Vol. IV. p. 334 n.]
2 [See Vol. XIV. pp. 306, 308.]
3 [For these artists, see Vol. XXXIII. pp. 327 seq.t 283, 280.]
4 [On this point, see Lectures on Art, Vol. XX. pp. 121 seq.~\
642 RUSKINIANA
to chiaroscuro for heightening effect. The great fault of Rossetti was the
false shadows he put in — wilfully, and for the sake of obtaining expres-
sion. Work in a broad, full light. Guard against caricature and satire as
fire that can ' burn you up, body and soul.' It is useful to be able to
see the blemishes in a face, but try rather without flunkery to dwell on
the nobler and more beautiful qualities. Choose the most beautiful faces
to paint, and do not paint any that have not something pleasant in them.
People talk of Hobbema's l moles and wrinkles, but if he had worked far
enough off from his models, he ought not to have seen them. Gains-
borough worked eight feet away from his sitter. This painful minuteness
that sees and depicts wrinkles and moles partakes of half truth, and half
truth is born of the devil. You are all so fond of Faust in these days
that I need not apologise for mentioning Mephistopheles, who never told
a direct lie. He only left out the good side of nature and insisted on
the bad. Satan said to Eve : ' You shall not surely die.' 2 She did not
die, but she did worse. Artists sometimes paint these half truths, and
people exclaim : ' How true ! ' This is diabolical work, and is like the
devil, who seems to speak the truth, though he is still, as ever, the father
of lies."
A student asked the Professor if he would say something about deco-
rative art.
" Yes," he replied — and I venture to put his words into the first
person singular, though I can really only give the direct purport of what
he said, and not a verbatim report of it. "We English have not the
inborn power of design that oriental nations have ; 3 but by following nature
faithfully, and not working in mere conventional patterns, we may excel in
decorative art in a different way. The Indian woman, when she has swept
her doorstep, takes some coloured sand and sprinkles it in a pattern on the
ground. She forms the pattern easily and gracefully and more beautifully
than anything you could learn to do after years of study in the school
of design at South Kensington. But by patient study of nature you can
do work that may have excellences of another kind. Those of you who
find you cannot reach to the higher branches of art may take up deco-
rative work; but don't do so until you have tried the other."
A student asked : " What is the good of second-rate art ? "
" I am glad you have asked me that question," replied the Professor.
" Fifth-rate, sixth-rate, to a hundredth-rate, art is good. Art that gives
pleasure to any one has a right to exist. For instance, if I can only
draw a duck that looks as though he waddled, I may give pleasure to
the last baby of our hostess, while a flower beautifully drawn will give
pleasure to her eldest girl, who is just beginning to learn botany, and it
may also be useful to some man of science. The true outline of a leaf
shown to a child may turn the whole course of its life. Second-rate art
is useful to a greater number of people than even first-rate art — there are
so few minds of a high enough order to understand the highest kind of
art. Many more people find pleasure in Copley Fielding than in Turner.
1 [So in the report ; but obviously a mistake. Ruskin probably said Denner :
see Vol. III. pp. 32, 36.]
2 [Genesis iii. 4.]
3 [On this subject, see The Two Paths, Vol. XVI. pp. 261 seq.]
ADDRESSES 643
Most people only see the small vulgarisms in Turner, and cannot appreciate
his grander qualities."
Going back again to technical points, the Professor said : " Use the
same colours in the shadows as in the lights. Wilkie's ' Blind Fiddler ' l
is a fatal example of the false principle of using entirely transparent
colours in shadows and opaque in the lights. The consequence is that not
only is it false in colours, but the whole surface is covered with cracks,
and the picture will soon fall a prey to the restorer. You should never
load on your whites. Turner was very wrong often in this respect. The
less paint you use the better, and your surface should be even. Leonardo
is a good example for you to follow in this respect."
VI
VIVISECTION
(December 9, 1884)
[From a report of a meeting on Vivisection held on December 9, 1884, at
Oxford. Printed in the Zoophilist of January 1, 1885, and reprinted in a pamphlet
with the following title-page : —
The | Bishop of Oxford | and | Prof. Ruskin | on Vivisection.
Octavo, pp. 7. Title-page (with blank reverse), pp. 1-2 ; text, pp. 3-7. Page 8
is filled with an advertisement of the " Victoria Street Society for the Protection
of Animals from Vivisection, united with the International Association for the Total
Suppression of Vivisection," 1 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. The pamphlet
was issued sewn, without wrapper ; Ruskin's address appears on pp. 6-7 ; it was
reprinted in Jgdrasil, March 1892, vol. iii. pp. 264-265, and thence in Ruskiniana,
part ii., 1892, p. 235 (No. 24).]
Professor Ruskin said he had learnt much from the speakers,2 but there
were one or two points which he should wish to refer to. It was not
the question whether experiments taught them more or less of science.
It was not the question whether animals had a right to this or that in
the inferiority they were placed in to mankind. It was a question —
What relation had they to God, what relations mankind had to God,
and what was the true sense of feeling as taught to them by Christ the
Physician ? The primary head and front of all the offending against the
principles of mercy in men and the will of the Creator of these creatures
was the ignoring of that will in higher matters, and these scientific pursuits
were now defiantly, provokingly, insultingly separated from the science of
religion ; they were all carried on in defiance of what had hitherto been
1 [For another reference to this picture (No. 99 in the National Gallery), see
Vol. III. p. 643.]
* [The Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Mackarness) was among those who had preceded
Ruskin.]
XXXIV. 2 S
644 RUSKINIANA
held to be compassion and pity, and of the great link which bound to-
gether the whole of creation, from its Maker to the lowest creature. For
one secret discovered by the torture of a thousand animals, a thousand
means of health, peace, and happiness were lost, because the physician
was continually infecting his students not with the common rabies of the
dog, but with the rabies of the man, infecting them with all kinds of
base curiosity, infecting the whole society which he taught with a thirst
for knowing things which God had concealed from them for His own
good reason, and promoting amongst them passions of the same kind. No
physician now dwelt in the least upon the effect of anger, upon the effect
of avarice, upon the effect of science itself pursued without moral limit ;
and the rabies of all defiance and contradiction to all the law of God
had become the madness abroad, which was without reason at all, and
was setting itself against everything that was once holy, once pure, once
reverenced among them. For his part, he thought they must not dwell
upon minute questions as to whether this or that quantity of pain was
inflicted. The question was that here in Oxford their object was to make
their youths and maidens gentle, and it seemed to him that they might
at least try to concentrate their efforts to prevent these subjects of science
being brought into contact with the minds of the noblest youths and
maidens who came there to be made gentlemen and ladies. Their noblest
efforts and energies should be set upon protecting the weak and inform-
ing the ignorant of things which might lead them to happiness, peace,
and light, and above all other things upon the relation existing between
them and the lower creation in this life. He had always said that a
gentleman was primarily distinguished by his fellowship with the nobler
animals of creation, and the peasant chiefly by the kindness which he
showed to every useful one.
EPITAPHS
ON PRINCE LEOPOLD, DUKE OF ALBANY
ON OSBORNE GORDON
[Other memorial inscriptions by Ruskin have already been given :-
On his father, Vol. XVII. p. Ixxvii.
On his mother, Vol. XXII. p. xxiv.
On " Margaret's Well," Vol. XXII. p. xxiv.
On the "Colenso Diamond," Vol. XXVI. p. Iv.
On the "Edwardes Ruby," Vol. XXVI. p. Iv.
On the "Couttet Rose-Fluors," Vol. XXVI. p. Iv.]
EPITAPHS
ON H.R.H. PRINCE LEOPOLD, DUKE OF ALBANY
In Esher Church
[Printed in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 102, and thence (No. 133) in
Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 115 (No. 133). The memorial was unveiled by the
Duchess on December 3, 1884. It consists of a bust by Mr. F. J. Williamson,
standing in an alabaster niche.]
To
Leopold
Duke of Albany
Youngest son of Queen Victoria,
Who, with the chosen partner
of his life,
passed his closing years
at Claremont
in culminating honour, kindly
labour, and thoughtful peace.
His widow and neighbours
inscribe this tablet
in his parish church
recording
the reverent affection in which they held his presence
and guard his memory.
Born 7th April, 1853. Died at Cannes 28th March, 1884. Buried at Windsor.
ON THE REV. OSBORNE GORDON
In Easthampstead Church
[For Osborne Gordon, Ruskin's tutor at Oxford, see Preeterita, i. §§ 219, 226,
ii. §§ 8, 10, etc. (Vol. XXXV.), and General Index. This inscription was printed
at p. viii. of Osborne Gordon : a Memoir, with a Selection of his Writings, edited by
G. Marshall, M.A. (Oxford, 1885) ; also in the Guardian, October 21 (vol. xl. p. 1560),
1885 ; and reprinted in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 102, and thence in
Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 114 (No. 132): "A memorial has been placed in the
church of St. Michael and St. Mary, Easthampstead, by the parishioners and friends
647
648 RUSKINIANA
of the late Rev. Osborne Gordon. It consists of a window in the north side of
the chancel, and a mosaic pavement within the altar rails. The subject of the
window is the Adoration of the Magi. The glass has been painted by Messrs.
Morris & Co., from a design by Mr. Burne-Jones. The pavement is from a design
of Mr. T. G. Jackson, executed by Messrs. Farmer and Brindley. A brass tablet
has been placed on the adjacent wall, with the following inscription, written by
Mr. Ruskin, who was an old friend and pupil of Mr. Gordon : — "]
This Window and Mosaic Pavement are dedicate
to God's praise, in loving Memory of His
Servant, Osborne Gordon, B.D.,
Student and Censor of Christ Church, Oxford,
Rector of this Parish from I860 to 1883.
An Englishman of the olden time,
Humane without weakness, Learned without ostentation,
Witty without malice, Wise without pride,
Honest of heart, lofty of thought,
Dear to his fellow men, and dutiful to his God.
When his friends shall also be departed,
And can no more cherish his memory,
Be it revered by the stranger.
JOHN RUSKIN.
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC.
I. EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE (1868, 1880, 1881,
1882, 1886)
II. AN OXFORD PROTEST (1874)
III. AN APOLOGY AT A CONCERT (1880)
IV. A CHARITABLE APPEAL (1884)
V. PICTURES FOR JUDGMENT (1884)
[Other notices have already been given: —
To his class at the Working Men's College, Vol. XVI. p. 471.
To his drawing class at Oxford, Vol. XXI. p. 316.]
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC.
I
EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE
(1)
DENMARK HILL, LONDON.1
, I am about to enter on some work which cannot be well done
or even approximately well, unless without interruption, and it would be
desirable for me, were it in my power, to leave home for some time, and
carry out my undertaking in seclusion. But as my materials are partly in
London, I cannot do this ; so that my only alternative is to ask you to
think of me as if actually absent from England, and not to be displeased
though I must decline all correspondence. And I pray you to trust my
assurance that, whatever reasons I may have for so uncouth behaviour, none
of them are inconsistent with the respect and regard in which I remain,
Faithfully yours,
(2)
[March 1880.2]
Mr. Ruskin has always hitherto found his correspondents under the
impression that, when he is able for average literary work, he can also
answer any quantity of letters. He most respectfully and sorrowfully
must pray them to observe, that it is precisely when he is in most active
general occupation that he can answer fewest private letters ; and this
year he proposes to answer none, except those on St. George's business.
There will be enough news of him, for any who care to get them, in the
occasional numbers of Fors.
1 [This letter, printed as a circular, was at various times used by Ruskin in
reply to part of his large correspondence. A copy of it, dated "April 15th, 1858,"
is printed in Letters from John Ruskin to William Ward (No. 14), vol. i. pp. 39-
40. Another copy, dated " 2nd February 1868," was printed in Arrows of the
Chace, 1880, vol. ii. p. 272.]
2 [This is a similar excuse, printed at the end of the "list of works" issued
(March 1880) by Ruskin's publisher. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880,
vol. ii. p. 272.1
651
652 RUSKINIANA
BRANTWOOD, August 14th, 1881. l
Mr. Ruskin never gives autographs but to his friends, and of late has
scarcely, even for them, consented to add in any wise to his usual task of
daily penmanship, — irksome enough even when reduced within the narrowest
possible limits.
(4)
July 1882.*
I have directed Mr. Allen, in this and all future issues of his list of
my purchaseable works, to advertise none but those which he is able to
despatch to order by return of post. The just estimate of decline in the
energy of advancing age, — the warnings, now thrice repeated,3 of disabling
illness consequent on any unusual exertion of thought, — and chiefly, the
difficulty I now find in addressing a public for whom, in the course of the
last few years of Revolution, old things have passed away, and all things
become new, render it, in my thinking, alike irreverent and unwise to
speak of any once-intended writings as "in preparation."
I may perhaps pray the courtesy of my readers, — and here and there,
the solicitude of my friends, — to refer, at the time of the monthly issue of
Magazines, to this circular of Mr. Allen's, in which they will always find
the priced announcement of anything I have printed during the month.
May I also venture to hint to friends who may at any time be anxious
about me, that the only trustworthy evidences of my health are my writ-
ings ; and that it is a prettier attention to an old man, to read what he
wishes to say, and can say without effort, than to require him to answer
vexing questions on general subjects, or to add to his day's appointed
labour the burden of accidental and unnecessary correspondence.
(5)
BBANTWOOD, March 30, 1886.4
Mr. Ruskin trusts that his friends will pardon his declining correspond-
ence in the spring, and spending such days as may be spared to him in
the fields, instead of at his desk. Had he been well he would have been
in Switzerland, and begs his correspondents to imagine that he is so; for
there is no reason, because he is obliged to stop in England, that he should
not be allowed to rest there.
1 [Printed in Igdrasil, December 1890, vol. ii. p. 100 ; and in Ruskiniana, part i.,
1890, p. 112 (No. 126). "Task" was misprinted "bulk." For other replies to
autograph-collectors, see above, p. 495.]
* [This " Advice by Ruskin " was printed at the beginning of Mr. George Allen's
List of Works by Mr. Ruskin, and repeated in its subsequent issues for many
years. Reprinted in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, pp. 112-113 (No. 128).]
3 [In 1878, 1881, and 1882.]
4 [Printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, April 2, 1886. Reprinted in Igdrasil,
December 1890, vol. ii. p. 100 ; in Ruskiniana, part i., 1890, p. 112 (No. 127) ; in
M. H. Spielmann's John Ruskin, 1900, p. 61.]
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC. 653
II
AN OXFORD PROTEST
[From the Globe, October 29, 1874. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880,
vol. ii. p. 274. Ruskin had recently changed the hour of his lectures from two
till twelve, and the latter hour clashing with other lectures, some complaints had
been made. This "protest" was then issued on the morning of October 29, and
reprinted in the Globe of the same day.]
The Slade Professor has tried for five years to please everybody in
Oxford by lecturing at any time that might be conveniently subordinate
to other dates of study in the University. He finds he has pleased
nobody, and must for the future at least make his hour known and con-
sistent. He cannot alter it this term because people sometimes come from
a distance and have settled their plans by the hours announced in the
Gazette, but for many reasons he thinks it right to change the place, and
will hereafter lecture in the theatre of the museum.1 On Friday the 30th
he will not begin till half-past twelve to allow settling time. Afterwards,
all his lectures will be at twelve in this and future terms. He feels that
if he cannot be granted so much as twelve hours of serious audience in
working time during the whole Oxford year, he need not in future pre-
pare public lectures at which his pupils need not much regret their
non-attendance.
Ill
AN APOLOGY AT A CONCERT
[From the Westminster Gazette, January 24, 1900, where it is explained :
"Some time ago Mr. Ruskin induced Miss to promise to sing at Coniston
in aid of the charities, and to stay with him as his guest ; but she did not turn
up, and afterwards explained the cause. He felt very keenly the breaking of her
engagement, and wrote the following, which was read to the audience at the
concert" The date of the circular is December 3, 1880.]
BBANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
Mr. Ruskin cannot too strongly express to the audience the regret he
has felt at the breaking of her engagement by Miss on the present
occasion. He does not, however, feel called upon to express his sense of
the slight put upon Mrs. Severn and himself, and he is sure that the dis-
regard of the feelings and expectations of others, for which he can offer no
defence, has not been in reality so great as it appears, that the mischance
has been mainly owing to thoughtlessness and to the certainty felt by the
1 [Instead of in the drawing schools at the Taylor Gallery.]
654 RUSKINIANA
young lady that she can make us all forget our quarrel with her at the
first notes of her voice on some future occasion. Whatever our immediate
disappointment, it must be remembered that the presence of an executant
whose merits, real or supposed, discourage other performers, may not be
always a benefit to a concert, and Mr. Ruskin may perhaps be permitted
to state that his own feeling in such matters is that a song rendered with
simplicity of feeling by a soft and clear voice of average power possesses
all the elements of the most delightful music, and that the intricacies and
splendours of modern compositions for voices of extraordinary power too
frequently efface pleasure in astonishment.
IV
A CHARITABLE APPEAL
(1884)
[From the Westminster Gazette, January 24, 1900 ; reprinted from the Leeds Mer-
cury, to which the circular was supplied by Mr. John Bell, the Coniston Registrar
of Births and Deaths.]
My good neighbours, the Watkinsons, of Lawson Park, have been put
to great distress since they came here on the 7th of April of last year,
with goodwill to work, all of them, husband and wife, elder son and little
daughter, but little more than their own hands and goodwill to trust to,
and they have had a run of ill-luck since, besides the sorrow of losing their
younger boy, a child of six, by the blow of a scythe. On the 17th of July
they lost a cow, for which they had given £20 ; then a calf, which they
had reared ; then the first of the great storms blew their grange roof off,
and scattered irrevocably or destroyed all their hay, forty-three carts, all
but a cart full. I partly reimbursed them for their loss myself, enabling
them to buy another cow, and the horse they now have, but this horse is
now taken ill, just when they needed him (the shoulder and limb affected
by abscess) ; and I believe myself quite justified by the worth and the good
courage of the family in asking now for some little further help for them
so as to enable them to get another horse, and hire a farm labourer for the
work which the son is scarce strong enough for.
JOHN RUSKIN.
BBANTWOOD, 26th March, 1884. J
1 [The newspapers add : ' ' Mr. Ruskin started the subscription at £5, and it
ultimately totalled up to £35, 5s. 6d., the following being the final entry in the
subscription-book now in the hands of Mr. John Bell, and in Mr. Ruskin's own
handwriting : —
"f8th April, received total to here £35, 5s. 6d., which I think quite as
much as is needed in the case. I am sure it is far more than was looked
for, and my most true thanks are rendered with Mrs. Watkinson's re-
joicing ones, to the subscribers. — JOHN RUSKIN : Brantwood, 8th April, as
aforesaid.' "]
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC. 655
PICTURES FOR JUDGMENT
[The following circular has been found among Ruskiu's papers. For Mr.
Sewening, see Vol. XXXIII. p. 507.]
84 WOODSTOCK ROAD, OXFORD [1884].
All pictures on which Mr. Ruskin's opinion is desired are to be sent to
Mr. H. W. Sewening, 29 Duke St., St. James's, London. If Mr. Sewening
judges them worthless, they will be returned, charging only the expenses
of carriage and a fee of five shillings. If Mr. Sewening thinks them worth
giving an opinion upon, he will return them with that opinion written,
charging a fee of ten shillings.
If Mr. Sewening judges them worth submitting to Mr. Ruskin, he will
do so at the owners' request, charging a fee of a guinea, to be paid to the
St. George's Guild, and half a guinea for his own trouble, besides expenses
of carriage.
CONVERSATIONS
1. WITH SPURGEON, IN 1858, ETC.
2. AT VENICE WITH HOLMAN HUNT, 1869
3. IN AN OXFORD DRAWING-ROOM
4. AT BRANTWOOD IN 1883 WITH JOWETT
5. AT BRANTWOOD IN 1884 WITH M. H. SPIELMANN
6. AT FARNLEY, 1884
7. AT SANDGATE WITH AN AMERICAN VISITOR, 1887
8. WITH AMERICAN VISITORS
9. AT SALLENCHES, 1888
[For other Conversations and Reminiscences given in this edition, see
the " Minor Ruskiniana" in Lists of Contents of the several volumes.
For a notice of some Conversations at Hawarden, see the Introduction
to Vol. XXXVI.]
CONVERSATIONS
1. WITH SPURGEON1 (1858, ETC.)
TOWARDS the end of 1858 Spurgeon had a serious illness, and Ruskin
called to see him during his convalescence. " How well I remember," writes
Mrs. Spurgeon, " the intense love and devotion displayed by Mr. Ruskin,
as he threw himself on his knees by the dear patient's side, and embraced
him with tender affection and tears. ' My brother, my dear brother/
he said, ' how grieved I am to see you thus ! ' His sorrow and sympathy
were most touching and comforting. He had brought him two charming
engravings, — gems of artistic taste, which still adorn the walls of one of
the rooms at Westwood, — and some bottles of wine of a rare vintage, which
he hoped would prove a cordial to the sufferer's much weakened frame.
My husband was greatly moved by the love and consideration so graciously
expressed, and he very often referred to it afterwards in grateful apprecia-
tion ; especially when, in later years, there came a change of feeling on
Mr. Ruskin's part, and he strongly repudiated some of the theological
opinions to which Mr. Spurgeon closely clung to the end of his life."
(C, H. Spurgeon: an Autobiography, by his Wife, vol. ii., 1898, pp. 287-288.)
On this, or some earlier, occasion, Ruskin " told my husband," adds
Mrs. Spurgeon, " a very remarkable story, for the truth of which he himself
could answer. I think they had been talking together of the interpositions
of God's providence, of His care over His people, and of the singular
deliverances which He had vouchsafed to them when in danger or distress ;
and Mr. Ruskin then related, with an impassioned tenderness and power
which my pen cannot possibly imitate, the following instance of direct and
Divine preservation from a dreadful death : A Christian gentleman, a
widower, with several little ones, was in treaty for an old farmhouse in
the country. One day, he took his children to see their new residence.
While he talked with the agent, they set off on a tour of inspection, and
scampered here, there, and everywhere over the garden and grounds. Then
they proceeded to examine the house, and rushed up and down stairs,
looking into every room, dancing with delight, full of fun and frolic,
and shouting out their joy over every new discovery. Presently, when
they seemed to have exhausted the wonders of the old house, one of them
suggested that the underground premises had not yet been explored, and
must therefore be visited at once. So the merry band went helter-skelter
1 [In Punch for March 28, 1857, there was a paragraph (with sketch), entitled
<e Ruskin at the Feet of Spurgeon," quoting a paragraph from the Morning Advertiser
in which it was stated that Ruskin "sent a cheque, after hearing him preach, for
100 guineas to Mr. Spurgeon towards the fund for building a new place of worship."
Compare above, pp. 217, 296.]
XXXIV. <}59 2 T
660 RUSKINIANA
in search of a way below, found a door at the head of some dark stairs,
and were rushing down them at a great speed, when, midway, they sud-
denly stopped in startled amazement, for, standing at the bottom of the
steps, they saw their mother, with outstretched arms and loving gesture,
waving them back, and silently forbidding their further passage. With a
cry of mingled fear and joy, they turned, and fled in haste to their father,
telling him that they had seen mother, that she had smiled lovingly at
them, but had eagerly motioned them to go back. In utter astonishment,
the father listened to the children's tale. Search was made, and close at
the foot of those narrow, gloomy stairs, they found a deep and open well,
entirely unguarded, into which, in their mad rush, every child must inevit-
ably have fallen and perished, had not the Lord in His mercv interposed."
(Ibid., pp. 289, 290.)
" Mr. Ruskin came to see me one day, many years ago, and amongst
other things he said that the apostle Paul was a liar, and that I was a
fool ! ' Well,' I replied, ' let us keep the two things separate ; so, first
of all, tell me how you can prove that the apostle Paul was a liar.' ' He
was no gentleman, and he was a liar, too,' answered Mr. Ruskin. 'Oh,
indeed!' I rejoined, 'how do you make that out?' 'Well,' he said, 'there
was a Jewish gentleman came to him one day and asked him a polite
question, " How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they
come?" (1 Corinthians xv. 35.) Paul began by saying to him, "Thou
fool," which proved that the apostle was no gentleman ; and then he con-
tinued, " That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die," which
was a lie.' ' No,' I answered, ' it was not a lie ; Paul was speaking the
truth/ 'How do you prove that?' asked Mr. Ruskin. 'Why,' I replied,
' very easily. What is death ? Death is the resolution into its original
elements of any compound substance which possessed life.' Mr. Ruskin
said, 'That is the most extraordinary definition of death that I ever heard,
but it is true.' 'Yes,' I replied, 'it is true; and that is what happens to
the seed when it dies ; it is resolved into its own original elements, and the
living germ which is within it becomes the centre and the source of the
new life that spring from it.' 'Then/ asked Mr. Ruskin, 'what do you
mean when you talk of the death of the soul ? ' 'I mean/ I replied, ' the
separation of the soul from God ; it was originally with God, and when it
separates from Him it dies to God ; that is its death, but that death is
non-existence. The separation of the soul from the body is the separation
from itself of that which quickened it, and it falls back into its original
condition.' 'Well/ said Mr. Ruskin, 'you have proved that Paul spoke
the truth, but you have not proved him to be a gentleman.' ' At all
events/ I answered, 'the Apostle was as much a gentleman as you were
just now when you called me a fool.' ' So you are/ said Mr. Ruskin,
' for devoting your time and talents to that mob of people down at
Newington, when you might employ them so much more profitably upon
the intellectual and cultured few, like that Jewish gentleman who came to
Paul, and others whom I might name/" (Ibid., vol. iii., 1899, pp- 195-6.)
In one of his sermons, Spurgeon made the following allusion to another
conversation with Ruskin : " I had some time ago a conversation with a
very eminent man whose name is familiar to you all, but whose name I do
not feel justified in mentioning, who was once a professed believer but is
CONVERSATIONS 661
now full of scepticism. He said to me in the course of our argument,
' Why, how foolish you are, and all the company of preachers. You tell
people to think about the next world, when the best thing they could do
would be to behave themselves as well as they can in this ! ' ' (Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 562, containing the sermon preached by Spurgeoii
on March 27, 1864. Ruskin kept the number, writing on it " Spurgeon
on me.")
2. IN THE SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO WITH
HOLMAN HUNT (1869)
In his Autobiography (Pre-Rapkaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
1905, vol. ii. pp. 258-271), Mr. Holman Hunt describes a chance meeting
with Ruskin at Venice in 1869, after some years' separation. The friendliest
relations were at once resumed, and they spent much time in seeing
pictures together. Ruskin refers to this meeting in a letter to his mother
of July 1, 1869 (see Vol. XIX. p. lv.). They stood, in the Scuola di San
Rocco, before the " Annunciation," described in Modern Painters, vol. ii.1
Mr. Hunt, as an examination of the picture convinced him of the truth
of Ruskin's reading of the symbolism, "thought what happiness Tintoretto
must have felt when he had this illuminating thought presented to him,
and of his joy in carrying it out on canvas, and was wondering how few
were the men who had pondered over the picture to read it thoroughly
until in fulness of time the decipherer came and made it clear. This
decipherer," continues Mr. Hunt, "when he spoke, made it apparent that
his mind was dwelling more on the arrangement of lines in his design
and the technique displayed in the handling, than on the mysteries that
he had interpreted five-and-twenty years before." Ruskin proposed that
they should see what he had written about it twenty or more years ago —
doubtless "marked by much boyish presumption and by inflated expres-
sion." Modern Painters was produced, and Ruskin began to read. "The
words brought back to my mind," says Mr. Hunt, "the little bedroom,
twenty-two years since, wherein I sat till the early morning reading the
same passage with marvel.2 When Ruskin had closed the book, he began :
' No, there is no exaggeration or bombast such as there might have been ;
the words are all justified, and they describe very faithfully the character
of the picture. I am well content.'
" In ascending the stairs . . . we arrived at Tintoretto's ' Crucifixion ' ; s
this more than warranted all of Ruskin's enthusiasm and eloquence, and
we dwelt upon it for a full hour ere the Modern Painters was called into
requisition. How many, I thought, would envy me as I listened to his
precise and emphatic reading of the ever memorable passage in which he
describes this picture, and as I heard him say, 'No, again I decide that
what I wrote in past years is Avell,' — and it was well."
1 [See ii. ch. iii. § 17 (Vol. IV. p. 263).]
» [See Vol. III. p. xli.]
» [See Plate XXVI. in Vol. XXXV. for a study made by Ruskin from this
picture in 1845 ; and for his description of it, see Vol. IV. p. 270,]
662 RUSKINIANA
Mr. Holman Hunt afterwards said : " I observed to-day, Ruskin, that
when we were dwelling on the pictures, your interest was in the aesthetic
qualities of the work alone. Was this because, having previously dwelt
on the symbolism, you felt free to treat of the painter-like excellence of
Tintoretto's labours only ? " He goes on to report a conversation, in which
Ruskin explained the change in his religious views which had taken place
since his earlier books were written. Mr. Holman Hunt's notes of the
conversation, though accurate in substance, hardly succeed in catching
and reproducing Ruskin's manner. Ruskin himself has given account of the
change. He had been brought up in the strictest school of evangelicalism,
and in the acceptance of the literal accuracy of statements in the Bible.
He describes his gradual abandonment of this position, in Prceterita, iii.
ch. i. In an earlier volume, we have seen how difficulties in regard to the
observance of " the Sabbath " had occurred to him,1 and Mr. Holman Hunt
notes another point of the same kind : —
"On entering the nave of the empty church [the Salute], observing that the
marble pillars of a side altar were rich in embedded shell fossils, Ruskin walked
up the steps, and pointed this out as an evidence of the much greater antiquity
or the earth than the Bible records state. 'But, Ruskin,' I agreed, 'surely this
question is not a new one. Most of us considered such facts in our teens.' But
he, ignoring my remark, continued to urge importance in the argument that this
marble, though not of igneous formation, must have been many millenniums anterior
to man's appearance on earth."
Ruskin was deeply impressed by Bishop Colenso's writings, as we shall
see in his Letters ; and the shaking of the early foundations of his
evangelical faith had, as we have already seen from letters to his father,2
induced a mood of wider scepticism. This was the mood which Ruskin
explained to Mr. Holman Hunt at Venice in 1869- Mr. Hunt expressed
his astonishment, on the ground that the scepticism was not apparent
in Ruskin's writings of the time. To this Ruskin replied : " When first
I was shaken in my faith, in speaking to a lady whose general judgment
deserved the greatest respect, I declared that I must publish my change
of views to the world. She restrained me from doing so, and made me
promise not to act on this impulse for ten years.3 Being afterwards called
upon to lecture, I had to debate with myself in what way I could satisfy
the demand without breaking my compact, and I was led to allow the
greatest latitude to the possibility that my new views might not be per-
manent. It was wise to test this by reverting to my earlier theories, and
I therefore determined to deliver one of my old lectures, which, when
written, was heartfelt and thoroughly conscientious ; the report of this was
what you read."
Ten years later Mr. Holman Hunt met Ruskin again, in London. "Wre
had been dwelling upon a picture for which he expressed great enthusiasm.
As we were driving together, he said, 'One reason I so much value the
1 [
2 [
* [
[See Vol. XVII. pp. xxiii.-xxiv.]
[See ibid., pp. xxxviii.-xxxix.]
[A letter to Ruskin's father (from Mornex, February 21, 1863) mentions this
promise : " I promised Mrs. La Touche when I was in Ireland not to publish any-
thing on religion of a serious kind for ten years."]
CONVERSATIONS 663
picture we have seen is that it carries emphatic teaching of the immortality
of the soul.' " Ruskin, it seems, explained the change of view, upon which
Mr. Hunt remarked, by reference to spiritualistic experiences. His move-
ment back to the Christian faith has been noticed and explained, with
reference to Ruskin's own words, in earlier volumes of this edition.1 He
had, as Mr. Collingwood says, " passed through many wildernesses of
thought and doubt, and returned at last — not to the fold of the Church,
but to the footstool of the Father."2
3. IN AN OXFORD DRAWING-ROOM3
" ' Don't wriggle up your nose, and please look at me,' I was saying
for at least the twentieth time, in tones of despair, to my sitter, when his
little sister, who was perched on the window-sill, exclaimed, ' Here comes a
visitor — a gentleman. Oh, it is Mr. Ruskin ! ' ' Ruskin ! ' I almost shrieked
out. ' You surely don't mean the great art critic ! ' ' He tells us such nice
fairy tales, that is all I know about him,' replied the small maiden, and
she bounded out of the room. . . . 'This giant brandished a big sword,
then leapt upon a big brown horse.' I heard him utter these words ; his
peculiar pronunciation of the letter fr' struck me he had a kind of burr.
It was a charming tableau. Ruskin evidently enjoyed the fairy tale as
much as his small audience. The evening light was stealing in, casting
mysterious shadows ; it was a harmonious setting. I stood there fascinated
and no longer afraid ; the soft voice conquered me. ' Here she is,' shouted
my small sitter. 'You know,' looking earnestly at the master, 'she is
painting my picture ; only my head, not my legs or feet.' (I could have
choked on the spot this enfant terrible.') My hour had come; no use
fighting against destiny ; 4 I was now face to face with the prophet. It
was not so terrible after all. A hand took hold of mine, a pair of deep-
set pathetic eyes, with a twinkle of amusement, rested upon my flushed
face. ' So here you are ! At last we meet in the flesh ! I am glad to
see you here,' said the beautiful voice. I found myself seated close to
him. He did not look as if he remembered my past act of rebellion, and
if he did, evidently I was forgiven. ' So you are painting a portrait.
You have a fine subject, at all events, for colour. You like drawing
1 [See especially Vol. XXIIL pp. xlv.-xlvii. ; Vol. XXIV. pp. xxii.-xxiv. ;
Vol. XXXIII. pp. Ixi., Ixii.]
* [Life and' Work of John Ruskin, 1900, p. 361.]
3 rt( gjj, - —
Slight Recollections of Three Great Men, in Temple Bar, August 1895,
p. 515. The Recollection of Ruskin was reprinted, with some touchings up, in
Miss Henriette Corkran's Celebrities and /, 1902, pp. 256-261, where the following
remarks (made by Ruskin at " an exhibition of pictures, mostly by impressionists ")
are recorded (p. 261) : " Leave this place ; don't allow your eyes to dwell on
these impertinent, insolent daubs. It is a sin to prostitute a noble calling in
such a miserable way. It really makes me feel ill."]
4 [Miss Corkran had written to Ruskin for advice some years before, and had
fallen into displeasure for refusing to allow a letter of hers to appear in Fors
Clavigcra (Celebrities and 7, p. 257).]
664 RUSKINIANA
children. You ought to go to Ireland. I never saw so many lovely faces
as I did there, especially amongst the beggars — such eyes, such colouring.'
Like Topsy of old, who blurted out without reflecting about her words,
I exclaimed, ' It would not pay to paint Irish beggar-children, and, alas !
I have to earn money.' ' Not pay ! ' thundered out Ruskin, with a fine
expression of scorn 011 his face. ' What a sentiment ! Never work for
money ; it is degradation. You cannot execute anything of merit if
actuated by so mean a motive.' I suppose I looked ashamed of myself,
for the master's voice grew softer. ' No, you must love art for its own
sake. That unhappy system of Kensington has raised up a countless
multitude of inferior artists, vainly struggling to live by wh at will not
prove a grain of wheat or stitch a rag together. I assure you I would far
rather, if I had a daughter, that she were a scullery-maid, or a milkmaid,
than a London hack-artist.' I muttered something about not liking to
paint for money, and that I did not care to be rich. 'That is nonsense.
You are far too impulsive and talk sometimes without thinking, though
you have often shown that you have plenty of common sense and much
spirit ' (he added this sotto voce). ' If what you say now is quite true, you
would be an absurd creature to hate to be rich. Think, now, how you
would feel if a messenger came from the Bank of England, saying you
might draw unlimitedly. Don't flatter yourself that the feeling would only
be charitable.' I could not help langhing ; but Mr. Ruskin puzzled me,
he was so inconsistent. 'Art is a severe taskmaster' (he continued in
a more serious tone of voice); 'to succeed you must drudge and love your
work. You cannot serve God and Mammon.' Then he asked me what
I had been lately studying. I told him that I had been copying some
autotypes from Michael Angelo's Sistine Chapel. 'What has an Irish-
woman to do with Michael Angelo ? ' he exclaimed, smiling. ' You are
Irish, I know. No ; go to Nature, study her, that is the real teacher.
You have a gift for colour ; study form ; do everything as well as you
can ; even if you give a month's work for half-a-crown, no matter, it is
practice, and futuie capital. Now, I have preached enough, and must go
on with my giant's adventures.' After I had thanked him for his excellent
advice once more the children gathered round him, the sympathetic voice
continued the fairy tale."
4. WITH JOWETT AT BRANTWOOD l (1883)
" Ruskin talked about philosophy and religion, denouncing both logic
and rhetoric : ' he did not need them, nobody did.'
" As an illustration of his religious belief, he told me this story. ' Once
I had been very much excited by a letter which I had received from
a friend, and so great was my passion that my nerves were shaken
for a fortnight. On a dark and stormy day I walked up the hill out of
Keswick, and as I walked a sign came to me from heaven. I was praying
to be delivered from my burden, when suddenly a streak of light appeared
1 [Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, by Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell.
1897, vol. ii. p. 257.]
CONVERSATIONS 665
in the heavens.1 I walked on, and the clouds gathered, and the old frame
of mind returned. Again I prayed, and again I saw the light. This,' he
added, ' I believe to have been the state of mind of pious men in the
Middle Ages. They had signs from heaven, and so have Catholics at the
present day.' Speaking on painting, he said that there was no feeling
whatever in the old painters for natural scenery.2 Education he would like
to make voluntary. Children should only learn what they like. He never
took an interest in the classics until he was about forty, when he began to
read Livv."8
5. A CONVERSATION WITH MR. RUSKIN AT
BRANTWOOD4 (1884)
Three miles away from the village of Coniston, and on the opposite
side of the lake, lies Brantwood, the house of Professor Ruskin : a large,
beautiful, rambling house, with spacious rooms and low ceilings, command-
ing a view which is certainly unsurpassed in England for picturesqueness
and poetic beauty. Down the grassy slopes and across the placid, mirror-
like lake the spectator looks up at the Old Man of Coniston, rising majesti-
cally from among the lesser hills which form the middle distance. The
village lies away to the right on the opposite shore ; to the left no habita-
tion interrupts the view for four miles and more, save the ivy-grown
Coniston Hall. On such a picture, rich with ever- varying colour, fasci-
nating and peaceful, the great art critic loves to gaze throughout the
summer twenty times a day. Mr. Ruskin was walking in the extensive
grounds adjoining the house when I arrived, and pending the announce-
ment of my visit, I was shown into the drawing-room to await his coming.
Dwarf and other bookcases stood against the walls, which, moreover, were
adorned with beautiful examples of Prout, D. G. Rossetti, and others, as
well as Mr. Ruskin's well-known drawing of the interior of St. Mark's at
Venice,5 one of his most important efforts. Cases of shells, in infinite
variety, and of minerals revealed another and less generally known phase
of Mr. Ruskin's taste, and a volume of " Art in England " — his last series
of Oxford lectures — lay upon the table. I was still examining the hand-
some bindings upon the shelves (for the Professor delights in worthy ex-
ample of the bookbinder's art), when the door opened, and he entered the
1 [This occasion seems to be the one recorded in his diary of 1867 : see
Vol. XIX. pp. xxvi.-xxvii.]
2 [See the chapters xiv., xv. ("Of Mediaeval Landscape") in vol. iii. of Modern
Painters (Vol. V. pp. 248 *<?<?.).]
3 [To re-read, that is, and with pleasure : see Prceterita, i. § 167, and Ruskin's
letter of 1861 to his father in Vol. XVII. p. xlvi.]
4 [From the Pall Mall Gazette, April 21, 1884, by Mr. M. H. Spielmann, who
used most of the conversation at various places in his John Ruskin : a Sketch of his
Life, his Work, and his Opinions, with Personal Reminiscences, 1900. Reprinted in
the Scotsman, April 23, 1884.]
8 [Not of the interior, but of a portion of the facade. The drawing was No. 62
in the Ruskin Exhibition of 1907 ; the replica of it made for Professor Norton is
Plate D in Vol. X. (p. 116).]
666 RUSKINIANA
room. With his usual genial smile and engaging manner he said, " I am
very glad to see you ; I wish you hadn't come to-day, though." I was
preparing to offer apologies when he continued, " It was beautifully bright
and clear yesterday, and the view was pei'fect. To-day it is very black
and you can see nothing. But come with me into the library ; we can
talk better there, and see better, too, if the sun will only shine." And he
preceded me into a chamber which was enriched by even a greater pro-
fusion of works of art than the one I had just left. Numerous exquisite
water-colours of Turner hung around the room, a marvellous example of
Luca della Robbia's faience 1 (" fashioned by the master's own hand and abso-
lutely perfect," Mr. Ruskin said,) decorated the chimney-piece, bookcases
and drawers full of minerals lined the room, and beautiful books were
scattered about in artistic confusion.
"Well," said my host pleasantly, as he settled himself comfortably in
his easy-chair and fixed his deep-blue eyes upon me, " what can I tell
you or the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette that the public would like to
hear ? For you know I have no opinions upon politics or public matters
just now — for I don't know what is going on anywhere — especially I know
nothing about Egypt, General Gordon, Ireland, or London lodgings.2 You
see I'm very busy just now, and when I'm busy I daren't look at the
newspapers, nor even open my letters, until my work is finished, or I
should not be able to keep my mind upon it. So it always happens that
after the work upon which I am engaged is completed I have a huge
confused mass of correspondence to wade through. And what care / for
Egypt ? " I ventured to remark that it was about what he did care for that
I wanted to hear his views. " Stay," he said, " there is one political
opinion I do entertain just now, and that is that Mr. Gladstone is an
old wind-bag. When he makes what is called 'a great speech,' in nine
cases out of ten he uses his splendid gifts of oratory, not for the elucida-
tion of his subject, but for its vaporisation in a cloud of words."
kl
Mr. Ruskin then kindly insisted on showing me the " lions " of Brant-
wood. He went to one of the cases and pulled out a drawer containing
blocks of stone in which were large masses of dark-blue opal. " There !
never before, I believe, have such gigantic pieces of opal been seen, and
certainly not possessing that beautiful dark-blue colour. Oh, yes, I'm very
strong in stones ; my collection of agates is the finest in the kingdom, and
I am at present assisting the British Museum in this department.4 The
diamond I am at present exhibiting at the Museum is unique in crystalliza-
tion on that scale — I gave a thousand pounds for it. But look — look at
these books." The volumes to which he pointed were the original manu-
scripts of several of Scott's novels. " I think," he said, taking down one
of them, "that the most precious of all is this. It is Woodstock. Scott
1 [Plate VII. j the piece was obtained at Florence for Ruskin in 1880 by Mr. C.
Fairfax Murray, who attributed it to Andrea, not Luca.]
2 [The Gazette was writing much at the time on the Housing Question in
London.]
* [The passage here omitted on the then recent death of the Duke of Albany is
printed in Vol. XX. p. xxxvi.]
4 [See Vol. XXVI. pp. 1. seq.]
VII
Allen &Co.Sc
The Madonna and Child.
CONVERSATIONS 667
was writing this book when the news of his ruin came upon him.1 Do
you see the beautiful handwriting ? Now look, as I turn towards the end.
Is the writing one jot less beautiful ? Or are there more erasures than
before ? That shows how a man can, and should, bear adversity. Now
let me show you these beautifully engrossed manuscripts of the tenth,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. I know of no stronger proof of the
healthy condition of the Church at that time than the evidence of these
books, when they used to write their psalm-books so beautifully, and play
with their initial letters so artistically. Yes, the faces in all such manu-
scripts are very badly drawn, but that is because the illuminators were
rather sculptors than artists — in our sense of the term."
This reference to art encouraged me to ask what he thought of Art
in England at the present day. Mr. Ruskin shook his head mournfully.
" I have only stopped grumbling because I find that grumbling is of no
use. Besides, I am afraid of an action for libel — as in the case you know
of — if I open my mouth ; and if I cannot say what I choose about people
I do not look at them. I may briefly say that I believe that all the
genius of modern artists is directed to tastes that are in vicious states of
wealth in cities, and that on the whole they are in the service of a
luxurious class who must be amused, or worse than amused. I think
there is twenty times more effort than there used to be, far greater skill,
but far less pleasure in the exercise of it in the artists themselves. I
may say that my chief feeling is that things are going powerfully to the
bad, but that there may be something, no one knows how or when, which
may start up and check it. Look at those drawings of Turner — there is
nothing wrong in them ; but in every exhibition there is something wrong ;
the pictures are either too sketchy or too finished ; there is something
wrong with the man — up to the very highest." " Are you satisfied with the
result of your teachings ? " " Certainly not ! not in the least ; I have made 2
people go wrong in a hundred ways, and they have done nothing at all.
I am not," he went on rather bitterly, " an art teacher ; they have picked
up a few things from me, but I find I have been talking too much and doing
too little, and so have been unable to form a school; and people have not
been able to carry out what I say, because they do not understand it."
_ 3
"There," he said, closing the book, "I have never written more closely
than that, and they will recognize this one of these days. And I may
tell you a piece of news : if I am spared another six years I shall have a
school of my own. Turner liked the Royal Academy, and he was not
often wrong. Its members have always been very kind to me, and I
believe to everybody else. But its fault is that it is not an 'Academy';
it sets an example of no style, and it teaches its pupils no principles."
At this moment the clouds, which had obscured the sun hitherto, rolled
1 [Compare Vol. XIII. p. 466.]
2 [In his John Ruskin, 1900, p. 39, Mr. Spielmann revises the passage thus :
" All my life I have been talking to the people, and they have listened, not to
what I say, but to how I say it ; they have cared not for the matter, but only for
the manner of my words. And so I have made . . ."]
* [The passage here omitted, dealing with the care taken by Ruskiu in writing
his Oxford Lectures, has been printed in Vol. XX. p. xxii.]
668 RUSKINIANA
away. " Now," cried Mr. Ruskin, " you will be able to see the full
beauty of the view. Come and look at it from the dining-room : it is
finest from there." Then, turning from the window, he called my
attention to several pictures that the room contained. "Do you see that
picture inscribed ' J. M. W. Turner, su& manu ' ? That is a portrait of
himself when he was only sixteen.1 That is a grand Titian — that old
Doge over there ; and this picture, which recalls Sir Joshua's ' Banished
Lord/2 is a portrait of my father by Northcote. I always rejoice to think
that my father had the good taste and the good sense to have his
portrait painted by so clever an artist. He was no mean draughtsman
himself." As we passed back to the library, he continued : " Prout, of
whom you have seen several beautiful examples here, is one of the loves
which always remain fresh to me ; sometimes I tire somewhat of Turner,
but never of Prout. I wish I could have drawn more myself — not that I
should have done anything great ; but I could have made such beautiful
records of things. It is one of the greatest chagrins of my life."
I ventured to allude to the Ambleside Railway.3 " Whenever I think of
it," said Mr. Ruskin warmly, "I get so angry that I begin to fear an attack
of apoplexy. There is no hope for Ambleside ; the place is sure to be ruined
beyond all that people imagine. The reason I do not write to the London
papers on the matter is because it merely centres in the question, Have
they money enough to fight in the House of Commons ? It does not matter
what anybody says if the damaging party can pay expenses. There are
perpetually people who are trying to get up railways in every direction, and
as it now stands they unfortunately can find no other place to make money
from. But it is no use attacking them ; you might just as well seek mercy
from the money-lender as expect them to listen to reason."
_4
" Can you tell me anything," I asked, changing the conversation to less
debateable ground, " with respect to Lupton's failure to satisfy Turner in
mezzotinting his ' Calais Pier ' ? You no doubt saw Mr. Lupton's letter
to the Pall Mall Gazette on the subject the other day?"5 "The truth,"
1 [See the frontispiece to Vol. XIII.]
! |No. 107 in the National Gallery. For Northcote's portrait, see Vol. XXXV.]
3 'For a letter ou this subject, see above, p. 603.]
4 The passage here omitted, dealing with men of science, has been printed in
Vol. XXVI. p. xxxix. n.]
5 [In the Gazette of April 4, there was a letter from Mr. T. Lupton (the
engraver's son), giving the following explanation of the unfinished state of the
engraving : " Upon a proof of the engraving being first submitted to him, Turner
exclaimed, ' It is all sea and sky. They are mere doll's boats. I do not like it.'
He then touched the proof with chalk, enlarged the sails of the two principal
boats in the harbour, and added other ships in the distance. All these alterations
from the picture were accordingly made in the engraving, and involved much
additional labour and loss of time to the engraver. When the result was shown
to Turner, he exclaimed, 'Is that the result? It will not do. I do not like it. We
must return to the picture after all.' My father remonstrated at having to do
all this extra work, and suggested an increase to the stipulated payment. Turner
did not accede to this proposal, and my father could not afford to devote any
more time to the plate which Turner had materially altered from his picture ; hence
the engraving was never finished."]
CONVERSATIONS 669
said Mr. Ruskin, "is very difficult to get out of any expression of Turner,
and I believe that he was very apt to be dissatisfied when he saw the
colour of his pictures in chiaroscuro. I know the facts of the case well,
and I think that there was nothing that Lupton could not do. Assuredly
Turner did not mean to imply that there was any incapacity in his engraver
at all ; but when colour is altered to black-and-white it often happens that
the relative size of the objects appears to be altered too."
"Now that I am getting old," said Mr. Ruskin in reply to a question
of mine, "and can climb about the hills no longer, my chief pleasure is to
go to the theatre. I told you just now that I could always enjoy Prout ;
in the same way one of the only pleasures in my life entirely undiminished
is to see a good actor and a good play. I was immensely pleased with
Claudian and Mr. Wilson Barrett's acting of it : indeed, I admired it so
much that I went to see it three times from pure enjoyment of it,1
although as a rule I cannot sit out a tragic play. It is not only that it
is the most beautifully mounted piece I ever saw, but it is that every feel-
ing that is expressed in the play, and every law of morality that is taught
in it, is entirely right. I call that charming little play School entirely
immoral, because the teaching of it is that a man should swagger about in
knickerbockers, shoot a bull, and marry an heiress.2 As regards the litera-
ture of modern plays, I think that in comedies the language is often very
precious and piquant — more so in French than in English pieces ; but I
know of no tragedy, French or English, whose language satisfies me." 3
"The main work of my life," said Mr. Ruskin, "and it will be continued
to the end of it, is the ecclesiastical history that our fathers have told us,4
and the natural history connected with my mineralogical collections. I am
writing various catalogues in illustration of these collections, which I am
giving my best time and care to. Besides, I am still editing Miss Alex-
ander's book. Look at her drawings," he went on, as he drew some of
her illustrations from a cabinet. "Never before have I seen such perfect
penmanship — to say nothing of her knowledge of the flowers she draws.
Now, before you go, come up to my bedroom, and I will show you some-
thing worth seeing." He led the way upstairs, pointing as we went to
some of Turner's sepia drawings which decorated the staircase. " From this
room you will get the finest view of all of the lake. But it was not for
that I brought you up ; look round at these masterpieces on the walls. There
are twenty of Turner's most highly finished water-colours representing his
whole career from this one, when he was quite a boy, to that one, which
he executed for me. There is not one of them which is not perfect in
every respect. I am much exercised as to how I shall leave these beau-
tiful drawings after my death, so as to be of the greatest service to the
public. As it now stands, in case of my sudden death they will all go to
1 [" I like Wilson Barrett/' said Ruskin one day, " he flatters me so deliciously
and in such tactful taste " (M. H. Spielmann's John Ruskin, 1900, p. 41. For
another reference to him, see above, p. 21.]
3 [For another reference to this play by Robertson, see above, p. 392.]
8 ["And he added that he was a critical admirer, too, with many reservations,
of Miss Mary Anderson — 'a sweet lady and an excellent person, but not, I think, a
great actres;-- ' " (M. H. Spielmann, p. 54).]
« [See V..!. XXXIII.]
670 RUSKINIANA
Oxford,1 but I cannot quite make up my mind as to what is the best to
do. Here you see what is probably the most beautiful painting of fruit
that Hunt ever did, and it hangs among the Turners like a brooch. Yes,
I hold this to be the finest collection of perfect Turner drawings in exist-
ence— with one exception, perhaps ; and the nation shall have it."
" I have made a great mistake.2 I have wasted my life with mineralogy,
which has led to nothing. Had I devoted myself to birds, their life and
plumage, I might have produced something worth doing. If I could only
have seen a humming-bird fly," he went on, with a wistful smile, "it
would have been an epoch in my life ! Just think what a happy life Mr.
Gould's must have been — what a happy life ! Think what he saw and
what he painted. I once painted with the utmost joy a complete drawing
of a pheasant — complete with all its patterns, and the markings of every
feather, in all its particulars and details accurate. It seems to me an
entirely wonderful thing that the Greeks, after creating such a play as
The Birds, never went further in the production of any scientific result.
You remember that perfectly beautiful picture of Millais' — 'The Ornitho-
logist ' 3 — the old man with his birds around him ? — one of the most pathetic
pictures of modern times."
6. RUSKIN AT FARNLEY4 (1884)
"(Saturday, December 13.) — The first words he said when he entered the
room were that he had a great favour to ask, which was that we would
not ask him to go into the drawing-room, the room where the oil-pictures
by Turner hung, for that he should not be able to bear it. ... In the
evening he spoke about music. He said that what is now called high-class
music missed all the point and meaning of the old national music, which
so much depended on the feeling of the performer. Now-a-days you could
not get to hear a Scotch or old Italian air, and for his part he preferred
low music to what is called good music — the latter was full of a certain
passion but meant nothing.
"(Sunday, December 14.) — A dull gloomy morning; Mr. Ruskin talked at
breakfast about the clouds and his study of the sky, and the fact that the
last ten years had been marked by such great absence of sunshine and
so much cloud and fog. ... In the afternoon he looked at the Rhine
1 [For Ruskin's rupture with Oxford and revocation of this bequest, see Vol.
XXXJII. p. Ivii.]
8 [This concluding paragraph was added by Mr. Spielmann in his John Ruskin,
1900, p. 151.]
3 [For another reference in the same sense to this picture of 1885, see Vol. XIV.
p. 496.]
4 ["Mr. Ruskin at Farnley," by Edith Mary Fawkes, in the Nineteenth Century,
April 1900, vol. 47, pp- 621-623. Some letters to Mrs. Fawkes in connexion with
this visit are given in a later volume. For Ruskin's earlier visit to Farnley, see
Vol. XII. p. liv.]
CONVERSATIONS 671
sketches ; afterwards he looked at the book of birds. They seemed to
delight him, especially the peacock's head, which he said was a marvel of
colour and force, and the kingfisher, which he examined for a long time
with a magnifying glass, and he said he could not find words to describe
its exquisite beauty. I asked if Turner had painted many birds, and he
answered, ' Nowhere but at Farnley. He could only do them joyfully
there.' *
"He came down for an hour after dinner, and he talked a great deal
about Sir Walter Scott. ... Of Carlyle he spoke with the utmost love and
veneration. He said he had been more than a father to him, that there
was nothing in literature, so far as history went, like his French Revolution
and Frederick, and that he had done immortal work. I said how sad it
seemed that with his great aspirations he should have led such a miser-
able life. Mr. Ruskin said he was not really as unhappy as the life by
Froude made him out to be ; that he had a wretched digestion and a way
of talking about his miseries, but that his life was not really as unhappy
as Turner's.2
"The next morning Mr. Ruskin went away. I drove with him to the
station, and as we got near the little town, he said, ' Look ! look ! a
Turner drawing ! ' — and engraved on my memory is the familiar view of
Otley bridge, the river Wharfe gleaming in veiled sunshine, a soft mist half
hiding the town, and the great hill rising slate-coloured above the mist
into a luminous sky."
7. RUSKIN AT SANDGATE3 (1887)
At a small seaside town on the Kentish coast, and in an old-fashioned
hotel, whose living-rooms look directly on to a shingly shore, Mr. Ruskin
is at present staying for the benefit of his health. As it is not long ago
that unfavourable reports were circulated, I was agreeably surprised to find
him looking as well as he does. There was no sign of weakness as he
advanced and with kind cordiality greeted his visitor, pointed out a com-
fortable chair, and alluded en passant to the charming quaintness of the
room. "It is so quiet," he remarked, "nothing but the sound of the sea,
a murmur of waves, a rest and a pleasure." . . .
1 [It was then that Ruskin spoke the words about Farnley which his hostess
afterwards entered in the visitors' book : see, again, Vol. XII. p. liv.]
2 [So, in another recorded conversation, Ruskin " spoke with scornful amuse-
ment of such mistaken enthusiasts as wished to enroll Jane Welsh Carlyle among
the martyrs on account of her 'man's' bad temper. He admitted that Carlyle was
grumpy, and habitually melancholy — 'but so am I' — and he was easily irritated.
'That clever shrew,' his wife, well knew this, and by the very tones of her voice
as she ' rasped out his name ' could set his nerves on edge in a paroxysm of febrile
irritation " (" Ruskin and Girlhood : Some Happy Reminiscences," by L. Allen
Harker, in Scribner's Magazine, November 1906, p. 568).]
3 [From the Boston Evening Transcript, January 7, 1888. The article was
headed " Ruskin at Close View. An Interview with the Great Critic at Sandgate.
His Estimate of English and Americans as Art-lovers " ; and was dated November 22,
1887.] '
672 RUSKINIANA
I alluded to a newspaper report I had seen of his having lately pur-
chased some water-colour drawings by Turner, of Old Folkestone. He
smiled and replied, ''That is not quite true, though of course there is a
foundation for it. I bought some drawings from a Mr. Barrow, of Old
Folkestone, intending to use them as illustrations in a forthcoming book,1
depicting this coast in the days of Turner — you may know that Turner
lived at Margate and painted all along this coast." 2
" I believe the Town Council, or some of the local magnates of Folke-
stone, asked you to present the drawings to their museum ? "
"They did, though they would not appreciate them if they had them.
They are doing all they can to spoil the beautiful coast and the old town
with their horrible railway erections ; there are steamers there spouting
smoke for three hours before they start — one would think they might save
their fuel ; however, that is their lookout, though the thing is monstrous.
Once one could see the lovely coast stretching to Dover, see Shakespeare's
Cliff; now that is all hidden by hideous smoke. To think that I should
give them the drawings, that they might have bought themselves had
they been so minded, they are the damndest people."
Mr. Ruskin's way of saying the word " damndest " does not strike one
as a condemnatory epithet ; it is said with such a gentle relish, that it
merely becomes a superlative adjective of a humorous tendency.
" How do I like the Americans ? " This, in response to a question of
mine. " I did not like them until recently ; you know I lived for a long
time in the thirteenth century, then" — he laughed heartily for a second —
" I have been obliged to leave it and look round me a little here. What
made me think more of the Americans was because of the Americans I
met ; perhaps Miss Alexander inclined me — though she has lived so long
in Florence, that I might almost call her a Florentine. She has a beau-
tiful and tender character. . . .
"And then I met and thoroughly enjoyed the society of Dr. Holmes;
but my friend is Professor Charles Eliot Norton, a charming man — clever,
scientific, cultured. Yes, I like the Americans better now than I ever
did before — such youth, such energy. I think of them when I am dead
and the Great Energy is resistlessly pushing them forward. Their time is
not now, it is in the future, though I admit their progress in science ;
still, they are crude ; art does not come to a new people ; it must be
built up with patience and reverence. Some day they will have a
national school ; now they are crude and have no more idea or apprecia-
tion of a work of art, of a picture, than the English have."
"But do you not think the English are appreciative of art — more
appreciative than the Americans ? "
"John Bull is simply a colonist. He is a hard-headed, practical man,
Avho will go all over the world, and take other lands, and build walls, but
he doesn't care for a picture — he doesn't know a good one when he sees
one — and there are no painters who know how to lay paint on since
Turner and Sir Joshua Reynolds."
In saying this Mr. Ruskin did not convey the impression that he only
1 [One of Ruskin's many unwritten books.]
2 [For Turner's studies of Margate skies, see Vol. XXVII. p. 164.]
CONVERSATIONS 673
singled out these two men as deserving of praise from the many, for he
spoke of Stanfield, Constable, etc., and others of that epoch. He seemed
to mean that with their demise the English school of painting, as a
distinct school, had departed.
Later he delivered himself as follows concerning the Munich school : *
" I was there and stood it as long as I could, but it made me ill. Had
I stayed longer, such work" — he paused, and with an animated gesture —
" I verily believe would have given me the cholera."
After some general conversation not easy to write down, but in the
course of which Mr. Ruskin made graceful allusions to Carlyle and
Emerson, he again touched on John Bull's colonising instincts and the
Irish question. "An obstinate and cruel Government! Nothing but
cruelty and oppression in Ireland, beginning with Henry VIII."
"But you do not blame the existing Government for follies of the
past ? "
"No, but the existing Government has its follies of to-day. Let it
redress these."
From this dangerous subject, which like a theological controversy has
no end, the " professor " drifted conversationally to the Folkestone people
and their contrivances for defacing Nature's handiwork. " They are even
talking of sending their smoking steamers here, building a pier and a
railway and I don't know what — whatever they touch in Nature they
surround and spoil. There is a man there who has bought a bit of lovely
moorland and gone and built a wall around it ! The beach here is well
as it is, and should be left so. Not that they appreciate it; it serves for
the lovers who come from there, and sit on the shore in their horrible
plaid costumes and gaze on the sea."
8. WITH AMERICAN VISITORS *
" Ah ! now, gentlemen, I am glad to see you."
There was no time nor necessity for a formal introduction. The great
man took my hand as if he had always known me, as perhaps he thought
he had. Then he greeted my friend in the same way, stirred up the fire,
for it was a north of England summer day, and took a seat by the table.
We were all silent for a space — a silence without embarrassment.
"You were looking at the etching over the fireplace — it was sent to
me by a young lady in America," said Mr. Ruskin, "and I placed it there
to get acquainted with it. I like it more and more. Do you know the
scene ? " I knew the scene and explained somewhat about it.
Mr. Ruskin has the faculty of making his interviewer do most of
the talking. He is a rare listener, and leans forward, putting a hand
behind his right ear to get each word you say. He was particularly
1 [See Vol. VII. p. liii.]
2 [Little Journey* to the Homes of Good Men and Great. By Elbert Hubbard.
John Ruskiu. February 1895. New York and London. The date of the "little
journey" to Brantwood is not given.]
674 RUSKINIANA
interested in the industrial conditions of America, and I soon found
myself "occupying the time," while an occasional word of interrogation
from Mr. Ruskin gave me no chance to stop. I came to hear him, not
to defend our "republican experiment/' as he was pleased to call the
United States of America. Yet Mr. Ruskin was so gentle and respectful
in his manner, and so complimentary in his attitude of a listener, that my
impatience at his want of sympathy for our "experiment" only caused
me to feel a little heated.
"The fact of women being elected to mayoralties in Kansas makes me
think of certain African tribes that exalt their women into warriors — you
want your women to fight your political battles ! "
"You evidently hold the same opinion on the subject of equal rights
that you expressed some years ago," interposed my companion.
"What did I say — really I have forgotten?"
" You replied to a correspondent, saying : ' You are certainly right as
to my views respecting female franchise. So far from wishing to give votes
to women, I would fain take them away from most men.' " l
"Surely that was a sensible answer. My respect for woman is too
great to force on her increased responsibilities. Then as for restricting
the franchise with men, I am of the firm conviction that no man should be
allowed to vote who does not own property, or who cannot do consider-
ably more than read or write. The voter makes the laws, and why should
the laws regulating the holding of property be made by a man who has
no interest in property beyond a covetous desire; or why should he
legislate on education when he possesses none ! Then, again, women do
not bear arms to protect the State."
"But what do you say to Mrs. Carlock, who answers that inasmuch as
men do not bear children they have no right to vote : going to war
possibly being necessary and possibly not, but the perpetuity of the State
demanding that some one bear children."
"The lady's argument is ingenious, but lacks force when we consider
that the bearing of arms is a matter relating to statecraft, while the
baby question is Dame Nature's own, and is not to be regulated even by
the sovereign."
9. RUSKIN AT SALLENCHES2 (1888)
I had seen Ruskin often before. I had watched him Sunday after
Sunday walk up the Christ Church choir over the mosaic symbols of
Temperance and Fortitude. I had marvelled at the lengths of blue neck-
tie which appeared to be twisted round and round his collar, and seemed
to prop his chin, at that time beardless. I had listened to one of his
great courses of lectures in the museum theatres, and well remember how
in the last he so overwhelmed us with solemn awe, that when he closed
1 [See above, p. 499.]
* [From the Daily Chronicle, February 8, 1899. Another account of the same
talk with Ruskin, signed "M. W. N.," appeared in the Westminster Gazette,
January 22, 1901.]
CONVERSATIONS 675
his book no one moved or spoke. We sat there absolutely silent. We no
more thought of the usual thunder of applause than we should have thought
of clapping an angel's song that makes the heavens be mute. But then
I had no opportunity of meeting the great teacher to whom all were
devoted.
Once, however, I did meet him in rather an interesting way. It was
eleven years ago, soon after Prceterita had appeared, and inspired by a
description of a village in one of those chapters of youthful memories, I
had sought out the place myself, and was staying there. It is the most
beautiful valley I know in Switzerland. At supper there was always with
me a very modest and intelligent Scotchman, whom I conjectured to be
the attendant to an unknown gentleman in a private suite upstairs. The
unknown's bedroom was next to mine, and as he began walking about with
creaking boots at five o'clock every morning, I only wished he would go
away. Whether he was a nobleman or a lunatic, I could not quite make
up my mind, but from the enormous number of letters and papers he was
always sending to the post I set him down as a gentle graphomaniac.
Of course it was Ruskin. He was then writing the beautiful epilogue
to the last large edition of Modern Painters.1 Next day I saw the Master
at the window and he received me. In an Englishman his politeness was
so surprising that it seemed excessive. His manner at first also was sub-
dued and solemn, as though we were in church, and the tone throughout
sad and regretful but for the sudden sunshine of irony and the little smile
which tempered any bit of exaggeration or despair. He began talking at
once about the place, saying there was none like it for beauty and sub-
limity combined. "And yet," I said, "hardly a soul stays here."
"Very few people have souls," he answered, "and those that have are
generally too ambitious and want to go up heights. Hardly any one really
cares about beauty. If they did they would neither build London nor pull
Paris down. Most people care for nothing at all but comfort and money.
There are, of course, good people still, but they spend all their time in
undoing the harm which the others have done. They go about nursing, or
improving the East end, or teaching cretins. The healthy and hopeful are
neglected. Nobody thinks it interesting enough or worth while to look after
them, or share their lives. A woman with a lovely voice was singing here
the other day along the streets. Her only song was all about ' Liberte,
Libei'te,' and that sort of thing. I rushed out and asked her what she
knew of liberty. I tried to get her to sing some of the other songs in
the book she was selling, but found she didn't know any and couldn't read
a word. Was she not of more value than many cretins ? Yet no one
taught her.
" Yes, the people here are gloomy, and no wonder. They are neglected
and left to themselves, and not allowed to see or hear anything. There
are no gentry in the country. They have swarmed into the towns to make
money. The peasants have a very hard time, especially in such seasons as
this," (i.e., from the wet) "and now that the vines ai-e diseased. The whole
climate of Europe is growing damper, and I only wish God would provide
us with better means of resisting it. The snow is not so deep on Mont
Blanc as it used to be when first I saw it. It comes lower down the sides,
1 [See in this edition Vol. VII. pp. 461-464.]
xxxiv. 2 u
676 RUSKINIANA
but is thin, and the top is growing quite bare. Yesterday we were out
on the road towards C., and saw the great moraine that once came from
Mont Blanc and extended to Geneva and the Jura. As it gradually re-
ceded it left its greatest blocks just in that place. I measured some of
them." (Here he gave me the measurements, showing his careful accuracy
in all observation.) "The vegetation was very rich, as it always is on
granite."
Then he fell to talking of friends we both knew, praising their scien-
tific powers and their patience in drawing. "They can do this and that,"
he said, "which is much more than I can. Yes, I think there are still
good people in the world, though they generally overwork themselves — or
overwalk, like you. I only wish I could walk as far now."
Other personal things he said, and then parted with the same polite,
ness. I wish I could represent the perfect tone and modulation of the
voice, and the sweetness of the smile amid the sorrowful words.
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS
I. NOTES ON THE BIBLE:—
1. CONDUCT AND FAITH (1856, 1858, 1859)
(i.) IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
(ii.) AS SPOKEN OF BY CHRIST
2. THE MINOR PROPHETS (1882)
II. NOTES ON THE CLASSICS:—
1. THE "PLUTUS" OF ARISTOPHANES (1858)
2. THE ODES OF HORACE
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS '
I
NOTES ON THE BIBLE
1. CONDUCT AND FAITH1
(i.) IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Isaiah i. — New moons and sabbaths continued ; conduct only required.
Seek judgment (right, in margin) ; relieve the oppressed ; judge the father-
less and widow.
Is. ii. — The Sins accused are Soothsaying, Too great wealth (chariots
and horses), and idolatry and pride (very curiously connected these two
last) ; closed with exhortation to humility.
Is. Hi. — Punishment of the land by foolish princes, and babes to rule
over them. Oppression of anarchy : note verse 5. Then the two important
verses, "Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with him," "Say ye to
the wicked, It shall be ill with him." Pride again accused in daughters
of Zion.
Is. iv. — Mystical. May have evangelical meaning.
/*. v. — The vineyard bringing forth wild grapes ; that is, oppression in-
stead of judgment (verse 7). Also avarice and self-indulgence, in rest of
chapter. Laying house to house, calling evil good, conceit, injustice :
verses 20, 21, 22.
Is. vi. — Grand mystical passage. Isaiah, being a man of unclean lips, is
prayed and purged by live coal taken with tongs from off altar. ?
Is. mi., via., ix. — Do not bear on the subject except ix. 15, 17, Hypocrisy
and evil-doing and lying.
/*. x. — Verses 1, 2, Injustice and robbery of poor and fatherless; 6,
Hypocrisy.
Is. xi. — 4, 5, Righteousness and equity to the poor ; conf. xvi. 5 ; xxvi. 5,
7, 10.
1 [These passages are collected from Ruskin's Diaries written during his conti-
nental travels in 1856, 1858, and 1859. In looking over the book at some later
time, he noted the entries among "Things begun, not finished, an Analysis of
Texts relating to Conduct and Faith in Old Testament" — here limited to Isaiah —
and "As spoken of by Christ."].
2 [For Ruskin's discourses on the passage, see For* Clavigera, Letter 45 (Vol.
XXVIII. p. 146).]
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680 RUSKINIANA
Is. xii. — May be interpreted, with some forcing, evangelically.
Is. xvi. — 5, Righteousness.
/*. xvii. — 1, 8, 10 may be forced into evangelicalism.
Is. xxii. — 12, 13, 14, Merriment as iniquity.
/*. xxiv. — 5, Breaking God's law and the everlasting covenant; conf.
v. 20.
/*. xxv.— 6, 7, 8, 9.
Is. xxvi. — Importance of Equity to poor, and works generally, 8, 12, etc.
/*. xxvii. — Notable for denunciation of folly, 11 ; conf. xxix. 24.
Is. xxviii. — Sensuality and pride throughout; with evangelical verse 16'
opposed by 17.
/*. xxix. — Hypocrisy, 13. Watching and lying in wait for sin, 20, 21,
with praise of meekness and promise, 1Q.
Is. xxx. — Want of trust in God.
Is. xxxi. — The same, and idolatry, 7.
Is. xxxii. — Verse 2 may be forced into evangelicalism, but the restora-
tion is to be of perfection in character (4) and true estimate of it, 7 ; so
16, 17.
/*. xxxiU. — The great conduct verse, 15.
/*. xxxiv. — Not bearing on the point.
/*. xxxv. — Perhaps, with much forcing at verse 8, evangelical.
/*. xxxvi.—xxxix. — Historical.
(li.) As SPOKEN OF BY CHRIST;
1. First recorded words of Christ, "Wist ye not that I must be about
my Father's business" [Luke ii. 49]. I suppose the "how is it that ye
sought me," is best interpreted simply as the father and mother would
understand it; yet it seems to me as if it were a mystical question, to
all Christians who seek Christ vainly, and without working. How did ye
seek me?
2. Second recorded words, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteous-
ness" [Matthew iii. 15]. I do not, however, understand Christ's meaning,
as respected baptism. Whether He meant that persons pure in spirit were
yet wrong if they neglected outward means of sanctification ; or that " thus,"
in humility and submission to inferiors, all righteousness was best fulfilled.
3. Third recorded words, to the two disciples, to Peter, and to Nathaniel
[John i. 39, 42, 47]. To the disciples, the "Come and See" as well as
the command to Philip, "Follow me" [John i. 43], are both commands of
act s : addressed to persons beginning to seek the right ; and which com-
mands, by obeying, they would gradually find leading to more light. Of
the " thou shalt be called Cephas " I can understand nothing particular.
Nathaniel is already an " Israelite indeed," i.e., keeping the law perfectly,
and wholly upright, and then a miracle is vouchsafed to him, that he
may understand that Christ is indeed his Lord. This is just as it seems
to me God deals with all His people.
4. Of the Temptation words I can understand nothing.
(BAVENO, July llth, 1858.) — Still less can I understand what particular
points I was thinking of when I wrote that ; as their signification, so far
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS 681
as I recollect, never seemed obscure to me, or to any one else. Let me
see what seems to be in them to-day : —
(1) "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God,"
"Non in solo pane vivit homo sed in omni verbo Dei" (Matt. iv. 4). I
don't quite see how the feeding with manna proved this : for that was
"bread" — "in the morning ye shall be filled with bread" (Exodus xvi. 12).
" Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you " (xvi. 4). " The children
of Israel said one to another ' It (is) manna,' for they wist not what it was "
(xvi. 15): in the margin, or "What (is) this," or "It (is) a portion." But
in Vulgate, " Dixerunt ad invicem Manhu quod significat ' quid est hoc ' igno-
rabant enim quid esset." And in Glossary, " Manhu — ' Quidnam hoc est '
vel ' quomondo est istud.' " So that it looks as if one should generally
translate manna "What is this?" "They laid up a pot full of 'what is
this,' " etc.* But whether I take this meaning, or that of " a portion," it
is somewhat more intelligible as a type of God's word, or God's grace, in
this very mystery, than if manna meant bread. After all, the more I
think, the more puzzled I become ; and I suppose this was the way I lost
understanding of the words before. I don't understand what Christ means
by the " words " of God.
The other clauses of the temptation words are clear, but do not bear
on our subject.
Henceforward I shall not attempt to take the words chronologically,
lest I should miss some.
1. Matthew iv. 17. "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
2. Matt. iv. ip. "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
These two verses can only by much twisting be made to bear any
abstract interpretation about faith. Any simple man would understand
them simply — to turn from his sins, and to follow Christ both in hearing
and obeying.
The Sermon on the Mount I have elsewhere spoken of.1
3. Then, "I will, be thou clean" (Matthew xviii. 3). — Certainly a
strong type and proof of the power of Christ to "put away sin" by His
will and touch. So understood by the Jews: and very comforting to
Christians. A pure evangelical text.
* (DRESDEN, Sunday, 2Qtk June, '59. Comments written on the passage opposite,
a year afterwards.) — I see the "What is this" must be the true meaning, because
of the "He fed thee with manna, 'which thou knewest not, neither thy fathers'"
(Deut. viii. 3). Then the main question is — what is meant by " every word of God,"
pTjfjia. (Matt. iv. 4)? Now prjpa. sometimes means a thing. "With God nothing shall
be impossible " (fa* PWO-), Luke i. 37. Now, besides pwa. there are tiros and \6yos for
" word," and I find it stated in Maltby that pw* in Greek Sacred writers means
"a thing." Also, it seems to me to have come from i>tw, to flow, for tp& or fy^w
and dpu (see ftpu in Maltby *) are the words for " to speak " ; so that I should trans-
late " Man doth not live by bread alone but by everything which proceeds or flows
out of God's mouth" (? is ipfjuo* connected with prjp-a- in this sense). Now observe
farther, ori/ta is not properly a mouth at all ; used for it distinctly, however, in
Matthew xv. 18, etc. ; still its first meaning is or, fades. In the Vulgate " quod
egreditur ex ore dei." "Mouth" does not translate the full meaning of the sen-
tence : " Everything which flows from the Face of God," I should read.
1 [See Modem Painters, vol. iii. (Vol. V. pp. 378-379, 385, 426).]
2 [A New and Complete Greek ffradus, bv Edward Maltby, p. 195.]
682 RUSKINIANA
4. Matt. viii. 4. "See thou tell no man," etc. — I am always puzzled by
these prohibitions — surely very strange this withholding of himself by
Christ ; not half enough thought of; if the verse stood alone, I should
understand it. Do not talk to people about your Christian experiences,
but go this way, (about your business) show thyself — reformed and pure in
conduct — to the priest — (to all God's people) — and offer thy gifts in deeds,
for a testimony unto them.
5. Matt. viii. 7. "I will come and heal him," to verse 13. — It seems
strange that where this great humility and faith existed, Jesus did not
come under his roof but took him at his word : unless the doing so were
to him a greater manifestation of power and therefore more gracious. The
statement that Jesus " marvelled " is curious : either describing an appear-
ance of what was not, or else proving the abdication of omniscience.
6. Matt. viii. 12. The children of the Kingdom shall be cast into
outer darkness (note among the terrible verses).
7. Matt. viii. 20. " The foxes have holes." No bearing.
8. Matt. viii. 22. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." —
This verse might be used somewhat dangerously by people who wanted to
make their religion an excuse for neglecting immediate duties. It may be
classed among the evangelical ones.
9. Matt. viii. 26. "Why are ye fearful, oh ye of little faith?" — The
true use of faith is not to do away with deeds, but with fear.
10. Matt. viii. 32. "Permission of destruction" to be noted among
God's dealings with men or devils.
11. Matt. ix. 2. "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." —
Completely evangelical.
12. Matt. ix. 4, 5. "Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts, for
whether is easier," etc. — This, however, could not be understood by any
simple person to imply that there was less miracle in the forgiveness than
in the cure ; and it seems to me to mark that the power of forgiving
depended mainly on Christ's power of cleansing; purifying the soul, so as
to put it in a state to deserve forgiveness. Whoever feels this miracle of
soul-healing wrought in him may claim such forgiveness, but no other.
13. Matt. ix. 9- "Follow me."
14. Matt. ix. 12. "They that be whole," etc. I have never believed
these words of Christ to be wholly ironical. If they are, they are a most
curious example of the use of irony in a matter of profound importance.
If not, they are to be classed with the Prodigal parable ; and their exact
meaning — that is to say, the state in which a man may be, in which less
joy is made over him because he needs no repentance than over a sinner
recovered, is one requiring deep thought.
15. Matt. ix. 15. "Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn," etc.,
to verse 17 inclusive. — I don't understand these verses, never did. They
want thorough thinking out, with respect to the question of fasting.
16. Matt. ix. 22. "Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath
made thee whole." — These two miracles, of Jairus' daughter and the
woman, have peculiarly evangelical characters, and need close examination.
Observe, in passing, the absurdity of claiming verbal accuracy for Scripture,
when the speech of the ruler is said by Matthew to have been "my
daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hands upon her and
she shall live " — which, if we had had it alone, would have been reasoned
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about and preached about as the most glorious exercise of faith on record ;
but which, when we turn to Mark and Luke, we find is merely a short
and inaccurate compendium of what took place, the ruler coming to say
his child was dying, and the servant meeting them with news of her
death, when Christ has to encourage the father to believe still.
17. Matt. ix. 24. "Give place, for the maid is not dead but sleepeth."
Compare, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him"
(John xi. 11). — This is one of the instances of God's true assertion against
human modes of thinking or even of knowing. They knew she was dead,
humanly, but in God's sight, nothing is dead but what is left by Him
to itself — and to corruption. Death is unredeemable; all redeemable rest
— or rest that God intends to redeem — is sleep.
18. Matt. ix. 28, 29- "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" "Ac-
cording to your faith be it unto you." — I have never yet been able quite
to understand our Lord's appeal to faith in such instances. Observe,
however, that the faith must be manifested to the world by an external
change and bettering of state, be it better acting, or better seeing.
From this point I go faster to take a general review, meaning to return
upon details.
Matt. x. If these orders to disciples are to be taken literally, it is
awkward for the clergy. If not, we must beware of taking other sayings
— made to the disciples — home to ourselves.
Verse 37, " He that loveth," etc. — Tremendous verse to be pushed
home — (what does verse 41 mean?)
Matt. xi. Value of repentance. Chorazin (21) and verse about Rest
(28) — which people are always so fond of, avoiding all that about the Cross,
in the chapter before.
Matt. ix. 37. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are
few. Pray ye therefore," etc. — Labourers, fpydrai, wanted, not believers
merely. How little weight people lay on the word.
Perhaps before going on I had better work out the general meaning
of Christ's opposition of sinners and righteous as suggested in this chapter
(ix.). "Publicans and sinners" (verse 10), a Pharisee's phrase (11) — used
by St. Matthew, quoted by Christ, verse 19 of ch. xi., but not a Christ's
own phrase — Christ quotes the " I will have mercy and not sacrifice "
twice — here, "for I am not come to call the righteous but sinners," and
in ch. xii. 7, " Had ye known what that meaneth ye would not have con-
demned the guiltless."
Note respecting conversion, if people would only say "turned" instead
of "converted," how much trouble it would save! That wretchedly
misunderstood verse "Except ye be converted," etc. (Matt, xviii. 3), for
instance. The circumstances are : the Disciples dispute who shall be
greatest. Christ has to show them that they are yet entirely wrong and
off the road: "this will never do," He has to say, you must become some-
thing quite different from this before you are good for anything. So he
calls a child. Now — " except ye be turned and humble yourselves, ye
cannot enter into the kingdom " — OCTTIS ovv raTreivoxnj eavrbv <os T& irdiStov
TOVTO, ovros ecrrtv 6 fj.d£(av ev ry /JcurtAeip. rtav ovpavfav. Now notice, the
humbling is to be as a child. How is a child humble ? l Not by thinking
1 [Compare Vol. XVIII. p. 431.]
684 RUSKINIANA
that he is a converted child and only knows the truth — and nobody else
knows it and he has to teach it. But by loving everybody, trusting every-
body, working as hard as he can, playing simply and obeying his father
and mother, and learning for and from them. That, therefore, is the
Christian's character. He is not to teach. He knows nothing, his Father
and the Bible are to teach. He is to trust, to do, and to be good, and
of course to tell every one his Father is good, but not to go up to other
children and pretend to teach them as if he mere his Father.
Query, meaning of rfav p,iKp<av TOVTOJV TWV TriorevovTov «is ffj-e — query,
trusting in me — in a simple childish sense. (Observe when Christ says "thy
sins are forgiven thee" to the palsy-stricken it is "TCKTOV." "Child, thy
sins," not "son," as we have it.) Now this verse which Jesus quotes
twice, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice," is probably most literally,
Hosea v. 6 : " For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge
of God more than burnt offerings;" compare Hosea viii. 13; Micah vi. 6-8 ;
Prov. xxii. 3, 27; 1st Samuel xv. 22; Eccl. v. 1; Psalm li. 16; 1. 18;
Isa. i. 11; Amos v. 21; Christ Himself is anointed because He loved
Righteousness, Hebrews i. 9 J (Heb. iii. 14, who are the jufroxot Xpicrrov,
fellows of Christ?)
Note very strictly Luke xii. 29, 31. "Seek you not what ye shall
eat . . . neither be ye of doubtful mind, but rather seek the Kingdom of
God" — (i.e., Righteousness — peace and joy in the Holy Ghost) followed
by the " Sell that ye have and give alms " — nothing about Sentiments here.
Galatians i. 4. — An evangelical one. What does it really mean ? " Who
gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us (take us out of) this
present evil, alutv." What do people consider this taking out to be, or the
cuwv to be ? — questions to be mainly asked : the meaning, and how the
giving himself for our sins enables Christ to do it?
2. THE MINOR PROPHETS1
(1882)
It will be well now to collect and arrange the texts I have been in the
habit of referring to as including most briefly the teaching of the Bible.
1. Conduct not sacrifice. — Micah vi. 6'-8 : this, of conduct against sacrifice,
quite primary. Hosea vi. 6; Amos iv. 5, v. 21.
2. False weights. — Micah vi. 10-12, of false weights and measures.
Amos viii. 5, "ephah small, shekel great" (measure small, price big).
Micah vii. 2, conf. with 14th Psalm.
3. Redemption. — Hosea i. 10, "In the place where it was said unto
them, ye are the sons of the living God." Conf. ii. 18, xiii. 14.
4. Resurrection. — Hosea vi. 2, "After two days will he revive us; in the
third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight."
1 [These notes were made by Ruskin in the Diary of 1882, written while he
was travelling in Switzerland and Italy. It is not to be understood that the texts
from the Minor Prophets are those to which he attached most importance in the
whole Bible. He means that whatever the portion of the Bible he was engaged
upon at the time, he would collect and arrange the most important passages in it.J
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS 685
5. Usury and Traffic. — Proverbs xxviii. 8, " He that by usury and unjust
gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the
poor"; Hosea xii. 1, "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his
hand " ; Amos ii. 6, " Because they have sold the righteous for silver, and
the poor for a pair of shoes" — the following (8) "clothes laid to pledge
by every altar" and "wine of the condemned," of deeper meaning.
6. Punishment by withholding harvest. — Hosea ii. 9» " Therefore I will
return, and take away my corn in the time thereof." Confer all Joel i.,
especially verse 7; Amos iv. 7-10; Haggai i. 6, 11; ii. 16.
7. Suffering of lower creatures with man. — Hosea iv. 3, " Therefore shall
the land mourn, and every one that clwelleth therein shall languish, with
the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven ; yea the fishes of
the sea shall be taken away." Conf. repentance of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 7 ;
Zephaniah i. 3. Conf. evil joy in ruin, ii. 14.
8. Gifts to rulers and their uselessness. — Hosea iv. 18, 19: "Her rulers
with shame do love, 'Give ye.' The wind hath bound her up in her
wings."
9. Adultery. — The entire prophecy of Hosea is founded 011 the summing
up of idolatry under the figure of adultery ; iv. 1 1-17 may be taken as
the representative passage in all the Bible. Conf. vii. 4—6.
10. Instability. — Of perseverance, Hosea vi. 3, 4: "Then shall we know
if we follow on to know the Lord," followed by " Oh Ephraim, what shall I
do unto thee ? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early
dew it goeth away."
1 1 . Useless labour. — Hosea viii. 7, " For they have sown the wind," etc. ;
conf. xii. 1, "followeth after the east wind"; conf. xiii. 3 with context.
12. Persistence in sin. — Hosea viii. 11, "Because Ephraim hath made
many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin"; with iv. 17.
13. Madness. — Hosea ix. 7, "Israel shall know it ... the spiritual man
is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquities " ; conf. ix. 8, of false preach-
ing : " The prophet is a snare of the fowler."
14. False judgment. — Evil plants, Hosea x. 4: "Thus judgment springeth
up as hemlock in the furrows of the field." Conf. 8, "the thorn and the
thistle shall come up on their altars." Zephaniah iii. 3, Micah ii. 11, of
false prophets. Habakkuk i. 1-4.
15. Shame. — Hosea x. 8, "They shall say to the mountains 'Fall on
us/ and to the hills 'Cover us.'" Zephaniah iii. 5, "The unjust knoweth
no shame."
16. Righteousness (with mercy). — Hosea x. 12, "Sow to yourselves in
righteousness, reap in mercy," to be compared with the first verse, " Israel
is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself" ; to be examined
with the interpretation following of idolatry, and again with verse 13, "Ye
have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity, ye have eaten the fruit
of lies." Conf. xii. 5, "Keep mercy and judgment and wait on thy God
continually."
The whole of Amos v. (but chiefly 24) and vi. 12 always obscure to me.
Zephaniah ii. 3, iii. 5, 12, 13.
17. The Love of God. — Hosea xi. 1, "When Israel was a child then I
loved him." The whole chapter is one piece, centred on " I drew them
with cords of a man " and " How shall I make thee as Admah ! "
686 RUSKINIANA
Jonah iv. 1, 2. The Litany text1 — one always forgets where it comes
from, and that Jonah is angry in saying it. The strangest thing in all
Sacred Literature, — this last chapter of Jonah.
18. Power with God. — Hosea xii. 4, "Yea by his strength he had power
over the angel and prevailed," with context.
19. Wisdom. — Last verse of Hosea a good general one ("Who is wise,
and he shall understand these things ; prudent, and he shall know them ?
for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them : but
the transgressors shall fall therein").
20. Money.— The Golden Calf. Hosea viii. 4, 5, "Of their silver and
gold have they made them idols," "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee
off." Conf. xiii. 2; xiv. 2, "calves of our lips."
This ends my study of Hosea — certainly the most scattered and painful
of the minor Prophets. Chiefly general rebuke of adultery and idolatry, con-
taining many valuable texts, but little connected reading. The last chapter
the most useful.
21. Fasting. — Joel ii. 15. This text may be thought of as the char-
acteristic one of all Joel, in its sternness, clearness, majesty. A noble
prophecy — only three chapters, or Breaths, in the,. Word of it. Conf. their
unanimity of call, i. 14, ii. 15, in. 16 ("Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn
assembly," " Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly,"
" The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem ").
Then ii. 13 (after the great Locust place) is the one we abuse in our
monotonous lip-service, " Rend your heart and not your garments." There
would be other dressing for church, if the cheaper tearing were asked for !
22. Punishment by blight of trees. — Joel i. 12, "Even all the trees of the
field are withered because joy is withered away from the sons of men."
This verse, of especial interest because it seems to indicate that the
blight of vegetation is not directly by the hand of God ; but by withdrawal
from it of the Good Spirit of Man. Conf. Joel ii. 21-27.
23. Inspiration. — Joel ii. 29, the great passage "My spirit upon all flesh."
Amos ii. 11, 12, "I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young
men for Nazai'ites . . . but ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and com-
manded the prophets, saying, ' Prophesy not.' "
The following verse (Amos ii. 13), of cart and sheaves, instructive in its
Amosine metaphor.
Amos viii. 11, the Famine of the Words of the Lord.
24. The Day of the Lord. — Joel iii. 14, "The day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision."
The entire chapter iii. of Joel, with verses 31, 32 of chapter ii., are the
central Bible passage of the day of the Lord for Israel. The notable war
verse, iii. 10, " Beat your plowshares into swords," always confused with the
reverse in Micah iv. 3.
Amos iii. 6, " Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not
done it?" But the chapter is confused and weak, and the text in its
bearing obscure. Conf. vi. 20, much otherwise ; and Zephaniah i. 7 and
14 to the end.
1 [This is a slip. It is one of the Sentences preceding the Exhortation in the
Order of Daily Prayer, where, however, the version quoted is that of Joel ii. 13,
and not of Jonah iv. 2.]
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS 687
25. The Blessings of Wine and Milk — Joel iii. 18, "The mountains shall
drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk."
Conf. "Come, buy wine and milk" (Isaiah Iv. 1).
The vines, with goats browsing under them ; and crags with running
vines, among pastoral hills.
The entire prophecy of Joel is best thought of as that of the Day of
the Lord for the Jews, closing with perfect benediction. Conf. the whole
last chapter of Amos.
26. Oppression of the Poor. — Amos ii. 7, "that pant after the dust of
the earth on the head of the poor."
This text is of peculiar power, because the climax — or a main part of the
climax — of the opening burst of indignation forming the two first chapters.
Again, Amos iv. 1, to the "kine of Bashan"; all of Amos v., but espe-
cially verse 11, the burdens of wheat and house of stone. Amos viii. 6:
I fancy the price, a pair of shoes, must occur elsewhere.1 Micah ii. 1-6,
of stealing land; iii. 1—3, the strongest of all.
27. Creation. — Amos iv. 13, "For lo, He that fovmeth the mountains
and createth the wind, and declareth unto men what is his thought."
Conf. v. 8, the Seven Stars and Orion, and ix. 6.
The 104th and 147th Psalms are the sum of all.
Micah v. 7, of rain and dew. Nahum i. 2—8. Habakkuk iii. 10, 11;
" the sun and moon stood still in their habitation " means their placing
first in heaven, I think ; their motion follows.
28. Heathendom. — Amos ix. 7, " Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians
unto me, oh Children of Israel?" Conf. Dante's "Tali Christiani." 2
29. False Prophets. — Micah iii. 5-11, the most important passage in
this kind, as far as I remember, in the Bible except the story of Ahab
and Micaiah.3 Zephaniah iii. 1—5 is perhaps the most valuable. The use
of judges and prophets always implied by the anger at their falseness —
"gnaw not the bones till to-morrow."
30. Peace and War.— Micah iv. chief. Conf. "The Day of the Lord"
in No. 24. The great verse — " Behold upon the mountains the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace," Nahum i. 15 — is after
a mass of confusion about Nineveh — alternate to Nineveh and the Jews.
31. Forgiveness. — Micah vii. 18, of Jews: "Who is a God like unto thee,
that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage ? "
32. Temple building. — The whole of Haggai, principal.
33. Blessing. — Haggai ii. 19, "From this day will I bless you." Quaere
word in Septuagint.4
34. Servants. — I suppose these are meant by Zephaniah i. 9, "those
that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence
and deceit."
35. Infidelity. — Zephaniah i. 12, "I will search Jerusalem with a candle,
and punish the men settled on their lees, which say in their hearts, The
Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil."
"Amos ii. 6 : quoted above, p. 685.]
"Parudiso, xix. 109 : see Vol. XVII. p. 76, and Vol. XXIII. p. 354.]
1 Kings xxii.]
'
688 RUSKINIANA
36. Life. — Ezekiel xxxiii. 15, "The Statutes of Life" — best general
term for all Moral Philosophy. Confer the previous verse 11, "As / live,
saith the Lord."
37. Priesthood. — Zechariah iii. throughout, the chief passage for the
foundation of it in the Church. " Upon one stone, seven eyes " (verse 9),
difficult.
38. Satanic power. — Zechariah iii. the most interesting, and very principal
for the founding of church system of resistance.
II
NOTES ON THE CLASSICS
1. THE "PLUTUS" OF ARISTOPHANES1 (1858)
TLevia, poverty, irTti)\fia, beggary, sharply distinguished in line 549-
Penia finely describes herself as the Goddess of Poverty, as Bacchus of
drunkenness. The life of a poor man which she rules over and praises is
£fjv faioofjicvov KCU TOIS e/ayois
irepiyivecrOai 8'avra) fJurjBev, p-rj [J.CVTOI p.r)8' «7riA.ewr«v (553, 554).
In the plan of the Plutus, it is difficult to understand what the author
really intended to convey. He makes the happiness and reward of the
just persons consist finally in becoming rich, while yet the arguments of
Poverty are excellent. His hero cannot answer her in the least, but only
mocks her and abuses her ; and one sincerely wishes that the prophecy
with which she leaves the stage — fj pjv vp-eis y' en ft kvravdol ftera-
Tr([j.\l/t<r6ov (609) — may be accomplished; to make the play at all complete,
I think it should.
In the characters of the play, the first noticeable one is that of Plutus
himself, which seems to confirm, and to be intended to confirm, all that
Poverty herself says of the meanness of the characters produced by wealth.
He is first sulky and brutal (58-62); then cowardly and weak (71, 76,
200, 203); then base in nature, even in a slave's opinion (118); then
stupid and thoughtless (122, 143, 169, 214) ; and all this has come upon
him since his youth when he was generous —
yo) yap v p.fip.Kiov T
d»S TOUS SlKCUOUS KOI OXX^OVS KOI KO(T)U,IOVS
/iovovs f3a.8ioip.r)v (88, 89) —
and a certain generosity of will remains with him still, so that he is heartily
ashamed of himself when he regains his sight (771, etc.), and complains
sadly, before, that people won't give him away to their friends (239, 241).
1 [It was from this play that Ruskiii took the motto for The Crown of Wild Olive
(Vol. XVin. p. 398). For other references to the play, see Vol. VII. pp. Ixii., 351 ;
Vol. XVIL p. 114 ; and Vol. XX. p. 296.]
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS 689
Next the character of the hero Chremyllus is really very beautiful,
patient, meek, generous, and prudent; described as a man of balanced
disposition, 247, 248, where note the lines descriptive of right feeling
about money : , x , .,.»,,
Xcu/3a> T€ yap <peioo/«vos <os ovoeis avrjp
irdXiv T* uvaAtov, r)vtK av TOVTOV Bey.
His first speech about his son is most pathetic (32-38). The terms on
which he stands with his servant mark him to be of a most gentle and
beautiful character: see 20 and 46.
uAAtt cro i irape£(a IT pay para. . . .
<f>pd£ov<rav Si (rKaiorarc croi.
Then he not only sends for his old friends to share his wealth, but allows
even the mean Blepsidemus to clutch at it. Then he is as courageous
as he is gentle, holding his ground calmly against the ghastly show of
Poverty (439, 440), and he appears generally as a comforter and appeaser,
through the last scenes of the play.
The character of the slave, Karion, is very interesting ; full of roguery
and humour, with a deep sense of honesty and kindness underneath. He
is conceited enough to find fault with Apollo —
SiKcu'av /ae/x<£o/^ai ravrrjv, etc. (8, 10) —
and plagues his master, but all in kindness —
ewovs yap wv 0*0 1 irvv6dvo{iai TTO.VV <r(f>68pa (25).
He is the most faithful and thievish of all his master's servants (27) ;
he has great delight in teasing the chorus (26l), but gives way in a
moment when they appeal to his kindness (283, 284). In wit and
coarseness he resembles Sancho Panza, and it is much the most singular
part of the play, to my mind, as bearing on the character of Athenian
women, that all his coarsest jokes are made to his mistress, whom at the
same time he addresses as Sea-iroiva. He is an immense eater also, like
Sancho ; but on the whole a very fine fellow.
The character of the AIKCUOS is a kind of mild Timon, 836, 849. This
and the other satirical passages of the play should be compared with
Lucian's 'AXcKTpv<av dialogue; and this Plutus with the "gran nemico " of
Dante.1
I am very sorry this most interesting play is spoiled by the ugly
episode of the
The passage 902-910 is of very great value in describing the kind of
person who usually meddles with public business.
Sight. Plutus' wish to remain blind and the fine comment of the slave
on it: av6p(i)iro<i oflrds «rrtv a$A.ios <£vo-ei (118).
1 [To Luciau's Dialogue, called The Cock, iu which the other character is
Micyflus, Ruskin refers, under the latter uame, in Modern Painters, vol. v.
(Vol. VII. pp. 285, 401); for the "gran nemico" (Plutus), Inferno vi., see
Vol. VII. p. 401, Vol. XVII. p. 210, and Vol. XXII. p. 63.]
690 RUSKINIANA
Avarice. If a man gets 13 talents, he wants 16, and if he gets 16, he
wants 40: 17 ^TJCTIV ov /SiwTov avry TOV ftiov (197).
Old Age. It is a very sweet and pensive verse :
TOV (fjibv /iev avrov TOV Ta\aiira>pov
€KT«To£evo-0cu /3iov (33, 34).
Popular Vice. And a bitter piece of general satire :
axrKf.lv TOV viov TOV firi^tapiov rpoirov (47) —
this "national way" having been before denned —
efvat iravovpyov, aSiKov, tryies /i?}Se «v (37).
Compare 340-342 :
«TT6V 8e pot TOVT' dvTo 0av/xc«riov, OTTWS
Xpryorov Tt Tr/aaTTWv TOVS ^>tAovs
OVKOVV €n-tx(^/t)lov 7C IT pay p'
Youth. The noble youths want horses and hunting dogs ; the base ones,
money (156, 157).
Barbers' shops, places of gossip — then, as now :
KCU'TOI Aoyos y ?jv vrj TOV 'H.pa.K\fa
€7Tt TOWTt KOVptlOKTl TWV Ktt^/Z€VCDV (337, 338)
2. THE ODES OF HORACE1
BOOK I. DDK
1. "Maecenas." (His own Shadow of Ivy
delight in verse, as
separating him from
other men and us)
2. Jam satis terris The pause of Hermes
3. Sic te Diva Too bold
4. Solvitur acris The Footstep. Compare with 95
5. Quis multa Calm at Sea
6. Scriberis Vario Maiden's War
7. Laudabunt alii To-morrow
8. Lydia, die Lost Sybaris
1 [Ruskiri, as we have seen from a note in his Diary for March 7, 1879, had
at one time planned a work on Horace which he proposed to call Mella Matini (see
Vol. XXXIII. p. xxiii.). This remained one of his many unwritten books. At one
time, however, he had chosen English titles for the Odes and Epodes. Some of
these are obvious and add nothing ; but others are characteristic, and the list is
here given. A few notes are appended from his diaries, notes, and MSS. ; the last
of these gives an idea of the form his commentary was to have taken. For Ruskin's
very numerous quotations from, or references to, Horace, see the General Index.
The Horace which Ruskin used to cariy in his pocket on his journeys abroad is
in the Coniston Museum.]
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS
691
BOOK I. ODE
9. Vides ut alta
10. Mercuri, facunde
11. Tu ne quaesieris
12. Quern virum
13. Cum tu, Lydia
14. O navis
15. Pastor cum traheret
16. O matre pulchra
17. Velox amcenum
18. Nullam, Vare
19. Mater saeva
20. Vite potabis
21. Dianem tenerse
22. Integer vitae *
23. Vitas hinnuleo
24. Quis desiderio
25. Parcius junctas
26. Musis amicus
27. Natis in usum
28. Te Maris
29- Icci, beatis
30. O Venus, regina
31. Quid dedicatum
32. Poscimur
33. Albi, ne doleas
34. Parcus deorum
35. O Diva
36. Et thure
37. Nunc est bibendum
38. Persicos odi
BOOK II. ODE
1. 39. Motum ex Metello
2. 40. Nullus argento
3. 41. ^Equam memento
4. 42. Ne sit ancillae
5. 43. Nondum subacta
6. 44. Septimi, Gades
7. 45. O saepe mecum
8. 46. Ulla si juris
Soracte
The Hymn to Mercury
The winter's wave
The praise of Augustus
Jealousy
State-Danger
Paris
Anger
To his mistress
None before the Vine
Glycera's Victory
The invitation. To Maecenas
The Chant of Apollo and Diana
Lalage and the Wolf
Chloe and the Leaves
Patience
The old age of Lydia
The chant for Lamia
The Whisper
Archytas
Books for breast-plates
The Hymn to Venus
The Prayer to Apollo
To his Lyre
Myrtale and the Waves
Lightning in the Blue
The Prayer to Fortune
The Feast for Numida
Cleopatra
Myrtle for rose
To Asinius Pollio
Covetousness
Contentment; because of Death
Maid Phyllis
The green grapes
Rest at Tarentum
The feast for Pompey
Barine unpunished
* "(VENICE, Dec. 31, 1876.)— The sum of Mammon was put clear for me last
uight. You must not be paid for doing good — i.e., for doing it charitably. There
must be no mixed motive. And you must not be paid for being rich. And your
motives, whatever they are, must be sincere. It is better for you (you are in a
more praiseworthy state before God) saying to a man, I will kill you, if I can,
and take all you have (like St. Ursula's father-in-law), than saying, * My good Sir,
observe how beneficial this will be to you,' when you expect to make money by
selling it. Integer vitce scelerisque purut: the Integer comes first; this being got,
the wholeness, you can purify from the scelus (Friday and cannibalism). But you
can't wash or purge a man if he comes in two pieces whenever you touch him."
xxxiv. 2 x
692
RUSKINIANA
BOOK II.
ODE
9.
10.
47. Non semper imbres
48. Rectius vives
11.
12.
13.
49. Quid bellicosus
50. Nolis longa
51. I lie et nefasto
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
52. Eheu, fugaces*
53. Jam pauca aratro f
54. Otium divos f
55. Cur me querelis
56. Non ebur
19.
57. Bacchum in remotis
20.
58. Non u si tat a
BOOK III.
ODE
1.
2.
3.
59. Odi profanum
60. Angustum amice
6l. Jus turn et tenacem
4.
62. Descende ccelo
5.
63. Coelo tonantem
6.
7.
8.
64. Delicta majorum
65. Quid fles
66. Martiis caelebs
9.
10.
67. Donee gratus
68. Extremum Tanain
11.
12.
69. Mercuri, nam te
70. Miserarum
13.
71. O fons
14.
72. Herculis ritu
15.
16.
73. Uxor pauperis
74. Inclusam Danaen
17.
75. JE\i vetusto
18.
19.
20.
76. Faune, Nympharum
77. Quantum distet
78. Non vides
21.
79- O nata mecum
22.
80. Montium custos
23.
24.
25.
26.
81. Coelo supinas
82. Intactis opulentior
83. Quo me, Bacche
84. Vixi puellis
The weeping for Mystes
The Balance
On this side Adria
Licymnia
The traitor tree
Death
Luxury
Rest
The sickness of Maecenas
Poverty
The chant of Bacchus. (Conf. 18)
The Swan
Peace
Hardship
Courage
The Doves
Regal us
The Decline
Asteria
The Kalends of March
Lydia
Out in the snow
Lyde and Hypermnestia
The stolen work-basket
The noble fountain
The feast for Caesar
The Distaff
Enough
Wood-gathering
The Nones of December
Fill thrice
The Lioness
The Amphora
Diana's Pine
Only rosemary
The Father of Cities
Sleepless, by Hebrus
The disarming
* Entirely sad ; with the first introduction of the " non pietas," and the " absumet
hseres." The stanza against vain caution — "Frustra cruento" — and the "Linquenda
tellus," very memorable. The most depressing of all the Odes.
t Against increasing wealth. The great " Privatus illis census erat brevis." The
phrase "norma veterum" memorable.
t The great one, of Care. "Patrise quis exsul," and "quid brevi fortes." The
only cowardly ode, this ; therefore grouped with 14. " Cura nee turmas " always
confused with post equitem — Behind the Knight. The great stanza of paternal life:
" Vivitur parvo beue."
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS
693
BOOK III.
ODE
27.
85. Impios parrau
28.
86. Festo quid potius
29-
87. Tyrrhena regum
30.
88. Exegi monumentum
BOOK IV.
ODE
I.
89. Intermissa
2.
90. Pindarum quisquis
3.
91. Quern tu, Melpomene
4
92. Qualem ministrum
5.
93. Divis orte
6.
94. Dive, quern proles
7.
95. Diffugere nives
8.
96. Donarem
9-
97. Ne forte credas
10.
98. O crudelis
11.
99. Est raihi
12.
100. Jam veris
13.
101. Audivere, Lyce
14.
102. Quae cura
15.
103. Phoebus volentem
EPODES
I.
104. Ibis Liburnis
2.
105. Beatus ille
3.
106. Parentis olim
4.
107. Lupis et agnis
5.
108. At, o deorum
6.
109. Quid immerentes
7.
110. Quo, quo scelesti
8.
111. Rogare longo
9.
112. Quando repostum
10.
113. Mala soluta
11.
114. Petti, nihil
12.
115. Quid tibi
13.
116. Horrida tempestas
14.
117. Mollis inertia
15.
118. Nox erat
16.
119. Altera jam teritur
17.
120. Jam, jam efficaci
Europa
The feast of Neptune
The law of Life
For ever
The Tenth Lustre
The Bee
Not mine
The Eaglet
Peace on the Hills
The Lesbian measure
Never more. (Conf. 4 and 100)
Gifts
The great Consulate
In vain
The Ides of April
Spikenard for wine. (Conf. 4, 96)
Ashes to ashes
The Neros
The prayer for Rome
Companionship
The Usurer
Reapers Relish
The servile Tribune
Witches
The Spartan hound
Fiercer than the Wolf
Carcase
Larger cups
Maevius (" Bon voyage ")
Three years since
Rage
The Song of Chiron
Indolence
Forsworn Nesera
The Happy Fields
The Deaf Adder
694 RUSKINIANA
MELLA MATINI. BEGUN, NONES OF MARCH, 1879
Epistles, i. 4, 12, 13:—
Inter spent, curaraque: — timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.1
"Between thy hope and care, — between thy fears and angers,
Believe thou each day that dawns for thee thy last."
(a) " Between." Literally ; but in two senses, meaning first in the
midst of, in the depth of — and secondly, in the balance between one and
the other.
(b) This balance is supposed to be between four things that cause
disturbance, a divulsion. Not the rest between opposing virtues, but the
stretched crucifixion between four wild horses. The four things are in two
groups, which I examine successively.
(c) "Hope and care." Primarily the desire that days of joy may come,
which are not yet ours, and the fear that days of pain may come, which
are not yet ours.
Believe this day thy last : and let the wild horses rave of others, in vain.
More feebly, and of the second clause only, George Herbert : " Either
grief will not come, or if it must, Do not forecast." 2 With also " either joy
will not come," etc., and you have the first half of Horace's sentence, in
its primary meaning.
(d) " Hope and care " secondarily. [Here the MS. fragment ends.]
1 [This was the f ' Pagan Message " sent by Ruskin for a New Year's Address :
see above, p. 534.]
a [The Temple: The Discharge.']
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY
AND
MARGINALIA
A BIRTHDAY BOOK
JOWETT'S PLATO ("REPUBLIC," IX. 591-592)
A GREEK LECTIONARY
ANATOLE FRANCE'S "LE CRIME DE SYLVESTRE
BONNARD " "
MEMOIR OF DR. JOHN FOTHERGILL
MILL'S "POLITICAL ECONOMY"
MILL'S "LIBERTY"
REJECTED BOOKS
[Marginalia noted elsewhere in this Edition are : —
Aristotle's Ethics (British Museum), Vol. I. p. xxxv. ». , , . . .
Aristotle's Rhetoric (British Museum), ibid.
Bewick's Birds (Sheffield Museum), Vol. XXX. pp. 281-288.
Carlyle's Past and Present (British Museum), Vol. XXVII. p. 179.
Hefner's Serrurie du Moyen Age (Whitelands College), Vol. XXIX.
p. 357.
Koran (Whitelands College), Vol. XXVIII. p. 426 n.]
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY
OF Raskin's study at Brantwood, which contained most of his working
books, a drawing has been given in Vol. XXIII. p. xxviii., with Ruskin's
sketch-plan and inventory (p. Ixviii.). It is not a large room ; and con-
tained, besides books, his collections of minerals and coins and many prints
and drawings. Every inch of wall space was occupied, and he was proud
of his contrivances for economy of room and facility of reference. A
cabinet, of which the top served as a table, was the origin of those in the
National Gallery and the Ruskin Drawing School at Oxford. Although
Ruskin had many books in other rooms, his library was at no one time
very extensive. It probably never exceeded 4000 volumes.
He read widely and consulted books largely ; but they were not his stock
in trade. Rather were they auxiliary tools; and often when he had ex-
hausted a particular use of them, he cleared them out — either selling them,
through a dealer, or, more frequently, giving them away. With books, as
with everything else that he possessed, he was a lavish giver ; and mention
has already been made of books, often of great value, presented by him to
Oxford, Sheffield, and Whitelands College.1 He was equally open-handed in
gifts to friends. Incidental mention has been made of a copy of one of his
favourite books, copiously annotated; by himself — the Livre des Cent Ballades
— which he presented to Mr. Norman Forbes.2 There must be hundreds of
school and private collections which contain books thus presented from
Ruskin's library. One interesting book of the kind — his copy of Carlyle's
Past and Present, given to a young Scottish student — has passed into the
library of the British Museum.
Ruskin, again, was no bibliophile, in the collector's sense of the term.
He cared nothing for first editions as such, and his collection of his own
works was very small and imperfect. He possessed some rare early editions,
which were of personal interest to him, and a few early printed books ;
but he was free from the weaknesses — and, alas, also from the right and
proper scruples — of collectors. The sad tale of his barbarous treatment of
books and MSS. has already been told.8 Here, again, use was his only
standard. But he was a great book-buyer, and the letters in a later volume
will show the friendly, and even affectionate, terms on which he stood with
leading members of the trade such as the late Mr. Quaritch and Mr.
F. S. EHis.
For reasons which will now be apparent, a visitor to Ruskin's library
as it was at the time of his death, or indeed at any other given time,
1 See Vol. XXI. p. 301 ; Vol. XXX. pp. 259 seq.
• Vol. XXIII. p. xxiii.
« Vol. XII. pp. Ixix., Ixx.
697
698 RUSKINIANA
would receive from an inspection of it a very inadequate impression of his
life among books. The library, as he left it (and as for the most part it
still remains), represents not the accumulations of a lifetime, but a residuum
of books which he retained from permanent affection or for constant
reference, or which were in use in the particular studies of his later
years.
Under this latter head are those which he used for Our Fathers have
Told U$ — such as Milman's Gibbon, Montalembert's Moines d' Occident, Mil-
man's History of Christianity, a collection of books on Amiens and Abbeville,
Gaullier's Suisse Historique, the Pictorial History of France, Guilbert's Histoire
des Villes de France, Sharon Turner's History of England, the works of
the Venerable Bede, the life of St. Patrick, and J. R. Green's Making of
England (appreciatively annotated).
Every one who glanced at the bookcases in the study or hall (the old
dining-room) at Brantwood was struck by the comparative paucity of books
on art. When we have mentioned Viollet-le-Duc's indispensable Dictionnaire
de I' Architecture, Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, Westwood's Miniatures and
Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS., Millingen's and Lenormant and
De Witte's Greek Vases, Prout's Sketches at Home and Abroad, and J. D.
Harding' s Elementary Art, the list of his important books in this department
is nearly exhausted. Of course, there were many other books on the Fine
Arts which he had given away ; but his art criticism was always founded
on independent impressions, practice, and observation, rather than on "autho-
rities." Of photographs, prints, and Galleries, a large stock remained to
him, even after his innumerable gifts in this kind to schools, colleges, and
individuals. Still less did the library give any indication of Ruskin's studies
in Economics. There is a " grand, thick, bevelled, gilded, crushed morocco
series lettered (by Ruskin) Hephaestus, which turns out to be Les Ouvriers
des Deux Mondes (1857) — the only sample we can find of the Political
Economy we were looking for ; nor is there anything of the sort elsewhere
in the room." x But, corresponding perhaps to the photographs in the case
of art, are accumulations of pieces justificatives in the form of newspaper-
cuttings. A collection of old newspapers 1643-1 663 (referred to in Fors
Clavigera, Letter 15) were given by Ruskin "to his dear friend Frederick
Gale," and sold at Sotheby's in July 1891.
Of standard works in general literature, the Library contained old editions
of most of the Greek and Latin classics, with a few translations such as
Douglas's Virgil (1553), an early edition of Chapman's Homer, and Jowett's
Plato. The standard English poets were also largely represented (including
the original edition of Cowley, 1668).
Of what the dealers call ' ' association books," Ruskin had several which
interested him for their history — as, for instance, a " Linnaeus " that had
belonged to Ray, the great Cumbrian botanist ; A Dyalogue of Syr Thomas
More Knyghte (1530), with the autograph "francis Bacons booke " ; and a
Dialogo di Antonio Manetti circa al sito, forma et misure dello Inferno di Dante
Alighieri (1506), inscribed apparently by the great artist "di Michelagnol
Buonarroti." Others were interesting to him in connexion with the history
of his own life. He kept his grandfather's Burns, his father's Byron, and
his own College Aristophanes (with copious lecture-notes and sketches for
1 Ruskin Relics, p. 186.
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY 699
The Poetry of Architecture in blank spaces). He kept, too, his father's copy
of Alexander Adam's Roman Antiquities (1819) and his own copy of the
same author's Latin Grammar — a book referred to in Prceterita. Among
books presented to Ruskin, the most interesting is Rogers's Italy. Of
this, a note will be found in Prceterita.1 Another book is one of twenty-five
copies on large paper, finely bound in morocco, of D. G. Rossetti's Poems,
published by F. S. Ellis in 1870. This was presented to Ruskin by his
friend, the publisher, who wrote (September 7, 1871): —
" May I beg your acceptance of a book in the production of which machinery has
had no part or lot? It is printed at hand-press on hand-made paper, and bound
entirely by hand in hand-dressed leather. I believe I may safely challenge machine
work to produce a volume at once as good-looking and as lasting."
There is also a copy of Morris's Earthly Paradise, " From his friend the
author."
The library is rich in works which tell of Ruskin's hobbies, and of the
manner in which he rode them. His interest in science was " unscientific " ;
he cared, in natural history, only for the beauty of the creatures or plants,
and for the sentiments that clustered round them. Therefore his scientific
books were sometimes out of date, but nearly always artistic. His Gould's
Birds he had given away ; but he kept Yarrell's (though here he did not
like the cuts). He had three sets of Bewick, and a set of Donovan's
British Insects, with its beautifully coloured plates. Among his botanical
books, were nineteen massive folios of the Flora; Danicce Descriptio, which
he characteristically shortened for reference to Flora Danica ; the twenty-
seven volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, which is Uoubtless very much
out of date, though its beautiful plates have never been surpassed ; and
many other of the works referred to in Proserpina. In geology, he set
most store by Saussure, Phillips, and Forbes. In mineralogy, he had
Jameson, Cloiseaux, Miller, and some more modern handbooks, both English
and French. Another of his hobbies was heraldry, and a copy of Guillim
(1638) is coloured by Ruskin and much marked. One corner in the study
contained several books on chess — a game, as we have seen (above, p. xlv.),
of which he was very fond. Among these is a MS. transcript of John
Cochrane's material for Loose Indian Chess Leaves.
A special set of drawers was set apart in the Library for Ruskin's large
collection of maps. Of his interest in map-drawing, account has already
been given (Vol. XXVII. pp. Ixx.-lxxiii.) ; he was a diligent reader of
maps,2 and collected them wherever he went : —
"Among these are still his first map of the Lakes, from Jonathan Otley's or
Wordsworth's Guide, and his old Keller's Switzerland of 1844, which he used forty
years later, saying that ' he did not want the railways, and no new map showed
the roads better.' Of favourite towns, such as Venice and Amiens, there are large
scale plans, the best that could be bought ; and of some Swiss districts, like
Neuchatel, there is quite a library of cartology. A highly detailed map of Medoc,
1 See Vol. XXXV. p. 29.
a Headers of Stevenson will recall that in his description of " The Ideal House,"
the library contains a "map table, groaning under a collection of large scale maps
and charts. Of all books these are the least wearisome to read and the richest in
700 RUSKINIANA
from a wine advertisement, was found useful ; likewise Britain with the ' centres
of Trinity College, London,' which he kept for its clearness. Philip's Authentic
Map of England is endorsed 'good common use,' and he even kept close at hand
a set of children's dissecting maps. The Ordnance Survey is fully represented ;
but because too much was put into these beautiful six-inch sheets, he has coloured
them fancifully and vigorously, to get clear divisions of important parts. . . . He
collected bird's-eye views in great variety, from Maclure & Macdonald's litho-
graph of the Soudan, to quaint old panoramas, of which one — the mountains seen
from the Buet — is quite like a William Blake design of Heaven and Hell, and fit
to serve as a background to all the mythologies." 1
Much of Ruskin's favourite reading was kept for wakeful nights in his
bedroom. Here may still be seen many shelves filled with the books of
his youth, "a most curious collection of dingy antiquity." Here also, as in
other rooms, were numerous French novels. But most used probably of his
bedside books was a Bible, in six volumes, one containing the Apocrypha.
In the same room he kept Shakespeare and Spenser, Scott and Byron,
Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Genlis, Carlyle and Helps. Of Lockhart's
Life of Scott he had two sets — the first edition, and the edition in ten
volumes of 1869. It may be mentioned, in the hope that the sentence
will meet the eye of some modern publishers, that Ruskin was much
irritated by the inconspicuous lettering of the numbers of the volumes.
He printed the numbers boldly in red ink and pasted them on the
volumes. In many modern books, in these days of ornamental binding, it
is as difficult to read the number of the volume, or even the title of the
book, as to pick out the name of a station from the advertisements on the
underground railway,
Ruskin's collection of manuscripts by Sir Walter Scott was the content
of his library of which he was perhaps most proud. References to them
will be found here (pp. 666-667, 726), and in later volumes of the edition.
Of his illuminated manuscripts, much incidental reference has been made
in previous volumes. Two of his finest books — the " Psalter of St. Louis "
(as he called it 2) and the " Missal of Yolande " 3 — are now in the library
of Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, who also possesses one volume of Ruskin's
Antiphonaire of Beaupre.4 These beautiful books are all referred to in
Ruskin's Works. A Book of Devotions, written, Ruskin conjectured, "for
the Diocese of Lincoln," has been mentioned above (pp. 218, 231). A
Book of Hours, French work of the early fourteenth century, has been
acquired since Ruskin's death by the British Museum.5 A Psalter, etc., of
matter ; the course of roads and rivers, the contour lines! and the forests in the
maps — the reefs, soundings, anchors, sailing marks, and little pilot-pictures in the
charts — and, in both, the bead-roll of names, make them of all printed matter the
most fit to stimulate and satisfy the fancy" (Essays of Travel, 1905, p. 204).
1 W. G. Collingwood's Ruskin Relics, pp. 115, 116.
a For its correct description, see Vol. XXI. p. 15 n.
3 See Vol. XXI. p. 270 n.
4 This is the book of which a page is reproduced in colours in Vol. XXXIII.
(p. 489).
6 Additional MSS., 36,684. "Hours, etc., in Latin, containing Calendar with St.
Omer Saints, Hours of the Virgin, Septem Psalmi, Letania, Hymns, etc. 155 leaves
vellum. Circ. 1320. Illuminated miniature initials. Margins profusely decorated
with grotesques."
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY 701
the same period and workmanship, was given to " Laurence Milliard with
John Ruskin's love, Brantwood, 25th January 1881," and passed into the
hands of Mr. Quaritch.1 An Old Testament in Greek — lettered on the
back " tenth century " — is ascribed to that date by Ruskin ; but the true
date, as was discovered by his friend, Dr. Caspar Rene Gregory, is 14-63.
It was annotated by Ruskin as he read ; as also was the Greek Psalter, in
the Coniston Museum. A Greek Lectionary, of the tenth century, still
more copiously annotated, is described below (p. 703). Among his other
illuminated MS. books was a large fourteenth-century Latin Bible, of which
Mr. Collingwood has an interesting recollection: —
"It is splendidly written in double columns with stiff Gothic patterns in red
and blue, and dainty little decorative initials, each a picture. Some of these he
used to set bis pupils and assistants to enlarge ; and a very difficult job it was to
get the curves to Ruskin's mind. If you made them too circular he would expound
the spring of the lines until you felt that you had been guilty of all the vices of
the vulgarest architect's draughtsman. If you insisted on the ' infinite ' and hyper-
bolic sweep of the contour — and you can't magnify a sixpence into a dinner-plate
without some parti prig — then you had the lecture on Moderation and Restraint.
But Ruskin was always very good-humoured and patient in these lessons ; in the
end a happy mean was found between Licence and Formality, and such works as
the ' Noah's Ark ' were elaborated." 2
Ruskin had also a Versio Vulgata MS. of the thirteenth century; a small
thirteenth-century Bible, English written ; another of the same period,
Italian ; and a German MS. Latin prayer-book and psalter dating from about
1220. But the MS. Bible which he most prized was "King Hakon's," so
called from a reference on the fly-leaf to King Hakon V. of Norway. The
book is of French work of the middle of the thirteenth century, and the
inscription being translated reads: "In 1310 brother Henry, provincial prior,
bought this book from the Conventus at Haderslev (in Sleswig) out of the
gift of my lord the King of Norway." It is on 613 leaves of thin vellum,
measuring 4£ by 6£ inches, written in tiny black-letter, double columned,
every page ornamented. There are more than eighty pictures, and hundreds
of daintily coloured initials — a perfect treasury of decorative art. Of the
illuminated MSS. which Ruskin presented to or bought for the St. George's
Guild, account is given in Vol. XXX.
Ruskin's library included also many printed Bibles — such as a Latin
version in three volumes, printed by Fran. Gryphius, 1541, with numerous
cuts. One of these — a Baskett Bible of 1741 — is that in which Ruskin's
father thus noted the boy's birth : —
"John Ruskin, son of John James Ruskin and JMargaretl Ruskin, Born
8 February 1819 at £ past 7 o'clock Morning. Babtized (sic) 20 Feby.
1819 by the Revd- Mr. Boyd."
The inscription is opposite to a pencil drawing, probably by John Ruskin
in his boyhood, which is stuck in as a frontispiece — a copy from a picture
of Jesus Mocked. The book has bound up with it at the end The Psalms
of David in Meeter, Edinburgh, 1738.
1 See No. 1581 (and Plate at end) in his Catalogue of 1908.
• Buskin Relics, p. 205. This study of an illuminated letter, with Noah s ark,
is in the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield : see Vol. XXX. p. 258.
702 RUSKINIANA
Another Baskett Bible, of 17*9, bears earlier registers of the family:—
"John Ruskin, Baptized Aprill 9th, 1732 O.S."
The children of this John follow, with dates and hours of birth between
1756 and 1772. One of them, John Thomas (born October 22, 1761), was
the father of John James.
Raskin treasured also the Bible (now in the Coniston Museum) from
which, as he noted on the fly-leaf, his mother taught him. His father's
Bible (Oxford. 1846, inscribed "Margaret Ruskin tc her husband, John
James Ruskin, 1850") was used by the son in later times, and is much
marked and annotated by him. It is worth noting, in connexion with
what has been said above (p. xlvi.), that Ruskin's study of the Bible was
unassisted by any theological library of commentaries ; though he kept by
him Smith's Bible Dictionary, the Englishman's Greek Concordance, Sharpe's
Translation of the Hebreiv Scriptures, and Finden's Landscape Illustrations of
the Bible. For use in travelling he had various little Testaments which he
carried with him, such as the set shown in the Ruskin Exhibition at
Coniston in 1900.
pi/ tie TOO cj
' "^ *
Xe*1/05'J?
Tor/ a^Tons Tirajj
' _K ••*' — Y
- ' o OLjyo c <
or«S-
J " «"'
K*7/«OTT>ic
»<eci e I
«»To;/ -corn ^
\
To face p. 703
A PAGE OF A GREEK LECTIONARY
ANNOTATED BY RUSKIN
MARGINALIA
A BOOK OF LESSONS IN GREEK. — Ruskin, as has already been stated
(Vol. XII. pp. Ixix.-lxx.), annotated his illuminated MSS. freely. He did
this (at various times from 1873 to 1875) copiously, and in ink, in his most
valuable tenth-century Greek Gospels, or rather Book of Lessons, from
which a page is here photographed.1 It is a large MS. of 144 leaves.
On a blank leaf inserted in the middle is written the Roll of the Com-
panions of St. George, referred to in Fors Clavigera (Vol. XXVIII. p. 657).
This leaf is headed (in Ruskin's hand) : —
"Names of the companions accepted, forming St. George's Company,
March 1876. Written by the master in the presence of S. Dill, C. Plummer."
Then follow in Ruskin's hand the following thirty-two names : —
Dorothy Livesey Susan Beevor Hetty Carey
Frances Colenso George Allen Joanna Severn
Elizabeth L. Bowden Alfred Hunt Juliet Tylor
Bessie Barnard William Sharman Julia Firth
Fanny Talbot William Smither Annie P. Somerscales
R. St. J. Tyrwhitt* James Burden Catherine Bradley
Giulie Sargood Blanche Atkinson Silvanus Wilkins
William Buchan Graham Henry Larkin Annie Elizabeth Ackworth
Ada Hartnell John E. Fowler Rebecca S. Roberts
Thomas Dixon John Morgan Egbert Rydings
Mary Kelly Robert Somervell
* Erased (J. R.) 14th May 79.
The passages referred to in the page facsimiled are (in order) :
Mark xiv. 20-27 (seen in the first two columns) ; Mark xiv. 27-end ;
Mark xv. 40; Luke xxi. 8, 9, 25; Matthew xiv. 31-46; Luke xix. 29-40;
xxii. 7-end; xxiii. 1-31, 33, 44-56.
A few of the notes are here transcribed : —
Hence to end the MS. is so clean and pretty that I will not
spoil it with notes. Collecting here any needful ones only, referring
by pages column, and line ; as here, 1 27, 2, 1 0, to the sacramental
ov prj TTiw read February 28th, 1875, with freshness of wonder. . . .
129. 4, 1 [Mark xiv. 58]. How far is there true saying of Christ
remembered in this false witness?
131. 4, 6 [Mark xv. 15]. The great sentence for study of demo-
cracy.
132. 1, 6 [Mark xv. 33]. We need not wonder if there is also
darkness now.
1 [For a reference to it, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 49 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 244).]
703
704 RUSKINIANA
132. 4, 15. a-vvox^ [Luke xxi. 25], I never noticed this strangely
universal word for all the forms of distress that are now upon us.
136. 4, 2 [Luke xxii. 28]. I never noticed before that Christ
speaks of all his life as temptations. Q. " trials," better ? the
radical meaning being " experimented upon."
" Some of the remarks merely comment on the grammatical forms, or
the contractions, or the style of writing. Where a page is written with
a free hand, evidently to the scribe's enjoyment, he notes the fact; and
likewise where the scribe found it dull, and penned perfunctorily. That is
quite like him to ask how the man felt at his work. But there are many
curious hints of questioning, and then confessions of his doubts about the
doubts, that go to one's heart to read.
" ' I have always profound sympathy for Thomas ' (John xiv. 5).
" ' Well questioned, Jude ! ' (John xiv. 22).
"'This reads like a piece of truth (John xviii. 16). How little
one thinks of John being by, in that scene ! '
" * The hour being unknown, as well as unlooked for (Matt. xxiv.
42), the Lord comes, and the servant does not know that He has —
(and has his portion, unknowingly ?).'
" To the cry for Barabbas (Matt, xxvii. 20) he adds, ' Remember !
it was not the mob's fault, except for acting as a mob.'
" Pilate washing his hands (Matt, xxvii. 24) — ' How any popular
elocutionist or yielding governor can read these passages of Matthew
and not shrivel ! '
"On the parable of the vine (John xv. 6), the earlier note to
the verse about the withered branch cast into the fire and burned
is — ' How useless ! and how weak and vain the whole over-fatigued
metaphor ! ' But then — ' I do not remember when I wrote this note,
but the over-fatigued metaphor comes to me to-day, 8th Nov. 1877,
in connexion with the Ka0o>s ijyewnjo-e as the most precious and direct
help and life/
" You remember John xv. 9 : ' As the Father hath loved me, so have I
loved you ; continue ye in my love.' That word was the help and life he
found." (W. G. Collingwood, Rusldn Relics, p. 202.)
A few other notes may be added : —
John xiv. 17. What utterly useless passages all these, if supposed to
refer to disciples only. What worse than useless, if taken by any
modern readers to themselves, as not of the KOO-/ZOS.
Matt, xxvii. 6. Our priests don't even warn our Chancellors of the
Exchequers of such dvo/tua.
Luke viii. 18-39. How precious every word.
„ xi. 52. How little 1 have rightly dwelt on this verse.
„ xx. 9. The increase of rage in the parable is one of the most
finished pieces of parable. But what does it mean?
„ xii. 34. This terribly misapplied text is always difficult. Q. if
men's hearts should be always in the future ?
„ xxii. 21 et seq. I never can see why any betrayal was needed.
The "Are ye come out as against a thief?" is so true.
MARGINALIA 705
Luke xiv. 26. I haven't enough studied this piece of Luke.
Mark ix. 33-41. I have never thought rightly of the sense of 8ex.op.ai
in this wonderful passage, nor of the beauty of cixxyKaXicra/jievos
aurb [" when he had taken him in his arms "].
„ 41. "Because ye belong to Christ." This simple definition of
Christianity much notable.
„ x. 46. Leaving Jericho instead of approaching it. One of what
" divines " call confirmatory inaccuracies, and sensible men, slovenly
history.
„ xiii. 7. Now what possible meaning can there be in this sen-
tence [from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part
of heaven]. The closing words are quite dreadful in their hopeless
falsehood. No metaphor under-meaning, or equivocal force can be
pretended for them.
Luke xv. 31. "Child, thou art always with me, and all that I have
is thine." How many clergymen have ever preached from this
infinitely tender verse?
A BIRTHDAY BOOK. — At the Ruskin Exhibition at Coniston (1902) was
a birthday book, laid open at the page where Ruskin had inscribed his
name. "Opposite is a pious couplet in which the blessings of 'God's
Saints ' are enlarged upon. Ruskin added an asterisk, referring to his
comment at the foot of the page :
"'God's saints. Yes, but how about God's sinners? J. R.' "
(Daily Nervs, February 8, 1902.)
FITZGERALD'S " OMAR KHAYYAM." — Ruskin had been one of the early
admirers of FitzGerald's now famous version. A transcript of the first
edition (1859) was made for him in one of his notebooks, and in Sep-
tember 1863 he addressed a letter of appreciation to "The Translator of
the Rubaiyat of Omar" — "a sudden fit of fancy, 1 suppose," said Fitz-
Gerald afterwards, "which he is subject to." Ruskin entrusted the letter
to an American friend, who after ten years (April 1873) handed it to
Professor Norton. By him it was sent to Carlyle, who thereby became
aware for the first time of his friend FitzGerald's work.1 Some reference
to the book is contained in Ruskin's letter to Norton of August 9, 1869.
A copy of the fourth edition (1879) was in Ruskin's library, and "some
readers may be interested in his dissent to stanza 34 ("Then of the Thee
in me who works behind"), and energetic assent to 21 ("Ah, my Beloved"),
25 ("Alike for those"), 45 ("'Tis but a tent"), and 46 ("And fear not").2
In his copy of Anatole France's Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard: "Ex-
quisite, but cannot be read fast."8
1 [See William Aldis Wrighfs Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald,
1889, vol. i. pp. 353-355, where Carlyle's letter to FitzGerald and FitzGerald's
reply are given.]
! [Ruskin Relics, p. 190.]
3 ["Happy Memories of John Ruskin," by L. Allen Harker, in the Puritan,
May 1900, p. 346 ; and Scribners Magazine, November 1906, p. 568.]
706
RUSKINIANA
JOWETT'S PLATO: "THE REPUBLIC" (ix. 591-592, vol. ii. p. 433). — The
following notes are from a copy of the book given by Ruskin to White-
lands College, and are here reprinted from Igdrasil, November 1890, vol. ii.
pp. 95-96:—
JOWKTT'S TRANSLATION
The man of understanding will con-
centrate himself on this as the work of
life. And in the first place, he will
honour studies which impress the quali-
ties on his soul, and will disregard
others ?
Clearly, he said.
In the next place, he will keep under
his body, and so far will he be from
yielding to brutal and irrational pleasure,
that he will regard even health as quite
a secondary matter ; his first object will
be not that he may be fair or strong
or well unless he is likely thereby to
gain temperance, but he will be always
desirous of preserving the harmony of
the body for the sake of the concord of
the soul?
Certainly, he replied, that he will, if
he has true music in him.
And there is a principle of order and
harmony in the acquisition of wealth ;
this also he will observe, and will not
allow himself to be dazzled by the opinion
of the world and heap up riches to his
own infinite harm ?
I think not, he said.
He will look at the city which is within
him, r.nd take care to avoid any change
of his own institutions, such as might
arise either from abundance or from want ;
and he will duly regulate his acquisition
and expense, in so far as he is able?
Very true.
592. And for the same reason, he
will accept such honours as he deems
likely to make him a better man ; but
those which are likely to disorder his
constitution, whether private or public
honours, he will avoidr
RUSKIN'S RKTRANSLATION
Will not then the man of understand-
ing gather all that is in him and stretch
himself like a bent bow to this aim of
life? And in the first place, honour
studies which thus chastise and deliver
his soul in perfectness, and will despise
others ?
Clearly, he said.
In the next place, he will keep under
his body, and so far will he be from
yielding to brutal and irrational plea-
sure,* that he will not even first look to
bodily health as his main object, nor desire
to be fair or strong or well, unless he is
likely thereby to gain temperance, but
he will be always desirous of preserving
the harmony of the body for the sake
of the concord of the soul ?
Certainly, he replied, that he will, if
he is indeed taught by the Muses.
And he will also keep the principle of
classing and concord in the acquisition
of wealth ; and will not, because the
mob beatify him, increase his endless load
of wealth to his own infinite harm ?
I think not, he said.
He will look at the city which is within
him, and take care to avoid any change
of his own institutions, such as might
arise either from abundance or from
want ; and he will duly regulate his ac-
quisition and expense, in so far as he
is able?
Very true.
592. And, for the same reason, he
will accept such honoui-s as he deems
likely to make him a better man ; but
those which are likely to loosen his
possessed habit, whether private or public
honours, he will avoidr
MEMOIR OF DR. JOHN FOTHEROILL. — Fothergill (1712-1780) was a physi-
cian, who kept up at Upton, Essex, one of the finest botanical gardens in
Europe, and was a chief founder of the Quaker School at Ackworth. In
1879 the School celebrated its centenary, and the following book was
* Plato does not mean here dissipation of a destructive kind (as the next
sentence shows), but healthy animal stupidities — hunting, shooting, and the like.
MARGINALIA 707
issued on that occasion : A Narrative of the Proceedings at the Celebration of
the Centenary of Ackworth School, 26lh and 27th of Sixth Month, 1879, edited
by James Henry Barber. Also a Sketch of the Life of Dr. Fothergill by James
Hack Tuke. . . . Published by the Centenary Committee, Acktvorth School, 1879.
A copy of this was sent to Ruskin by Henry Swan, and an account of
Ruskin's marginalia is here appended from J. Spence Hodgson's "John
Ruskin's Annotations of J. H. Tuke's Memoir of Dr. John Fothergill "
at pp. 52-54 of Proceedings of the Ackworth Old Scholars' Association, Part V.
Seventh Month 1886 ; Darlington ; Harrison Penney, Printer, Prebend Row : —
At p. 18, in a notice of an exhibition of the Industrial Schools'
Association, Ruskin writes after "staining and polishing of different
kinds of wood, "wood inlay should be added."
On the woodcut of a cameo portrait of Fothergill (p. 36) by
Wedgwood: "Quite splendid drawing and woodcutting. At p. 71,
where the author says of this portrait that it was probably modelled
by Flaxman, Ruskin writes: "Much too good for Flaxman."
On p. 53 is written : " The opposite plate is quite uniquely beau-
tiful so far as my knowledge reaches in expressing the general
character of old Yorkshire." — The plate is a woodcut of " Carr-End,
Semmer Water, Wensleydale, the birthplace of Dr. John Fothergill."
On p. 77 he is struck with the remark, "We find no trace of
the Doctor's attention to disorders of the mind," and writes against
it, "Most notable." Further down, opposite the words "The time
has not yet come for the introduction of any rational treatment of
mental disorders," Ruskin says: "Query — the disorder, not the treat-
ment, of modern invention."
Passage describing Dr. Fothergill's exertions re the employment of
criminals and the feeding of the poor (pp. 75, 76). — Twelve notes of
exclamation — " !!!!!!!!!!!! Lovely." Dr. Fothergill's protest against
the war with France (p. 77). — Underlined trebly.
MILL'S "LIBERTY." — Ruskin's copy of the first edition of this book (1859)
was in Sir John Simon's library (now in that of E. T. Cook). Ruskin
read the book with appreciation and often with assent. In writing in the
fifth volume of Modern Painters (I860) of Freedom, as consisting "in deep
and soft consent of individual helpfulness," he refrains from enlarging on
the subject, as "all that I should care to say has been already said
admirably by Mr. J. S. Mill in his essay on Liberty" (Vol. VII. p. 229).
But Ruskin's assent was limited. "There is much that is true," he wrote
in The Cestus of Aglaia (§ 80), " in the part of Mr. Mill's essay on Liberty
which treats of freedom of thought; some important truths are there
beautifully expressed, but many, quite vital, are omitted ; and the balance,
therefore, is wrongly struck" (Vol. XIX. p. 127). Ruskin's marginalia indi-
cate some of the points of assent and dissent.
In ch. ii. (" Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion ") Mill discusses
the "incomplete and one-sided" character of "Christian morality (so
called)," pp. 89, 90- Ruskin marks the passage thus:
"Capital; so far as it relates to our Christianity. Wholly false
so far as it relates to Christ's Christianity,"
xxxiv. 2 Y
708 RUSKINIANA
Mill says that a practical political maxim is to be read " in the Koran, not
the New Testament." Ruskin notes against the latter words :
" No, for the New Testament does not apply itself."
Among passages which Ruskin notes with emphatic assent is this (p. 93) :
" If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should
themselves be just to infidelity."
In ch. iv. (" Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Indi-
vidual") Mill criticises severely the theory of the United Kingdom Alliance
{p. l6l) — "a theory of 'social rights/ the like of which probably never
found its way into distinct language — being nothing short of this — that it
is the absolute right of every individual, that every other individual shall act
in every respect exactly as he ought; that whatsoever fails thereof in the
smallest particular (a) violates my social right, and (6) entitles me to
demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance." Mill de-
nounces this as "a monstrous principle," on the ground that "there is no
violation of liberty which it would not justify . . . for the moment an
opinion which / consider noxious, passes any one's lips, it invades all the
'social rights' attributed to me by the Alliance." The underlining and
the (a) and (6) are Ruskin's. Against the first passage so underlined he
writes, " Quite true." To (a) he says " Yes " ; to (6), " Does not follow."
And connecting the underlined / consider with the passage "act exactly
as he ought," he writes in the margin:
"Nonsense. 'As he ought,' yes; but 'as I consider he ought,' no.
The slip in of this false assumption spoils all."
MILL'S "POLITICAL ECONOMY." — Ruskin's copy of the first edition (in
2 vols., 1848) was given by him to F. S. Ellis, and is now in the posses-
sion of Mr. T. Thornton. It contains many comments in the margin — e.g.,
on pp. 10—11, where Mill says, "Wealth, then, may be defined, all useful
or agreeable things which possess exchangeable value," Ruskin notes :
" Let usefulness be x, exchangeableness y. So the sum of wealth
xy — 0 whether x = 0 or y = 0. This is all False. Wealth consists in
objects which have useable value of which the quantity is limited.
This is not in other words exchangeable value. It is still wealth
though there may be no one to exchange it with."
Often Ruskin marks passages as "excellent," "very good," "capital,"
"admirable," "very important"; occasionally he marks in an opposite
sense.
Upon Mill's definition of Labour as including "all feelings of a dis-
agreeable kind, all bodily inconvenience or mental annoyance, connected
with the employment of one's thoughts, muscles, etc.," Ruskin asks :
" Why not feelings of an agreeable kind ? Are feelings which
retard labour more a part of labour than those which accelerate
it ? "
MARGINALIA 709
Upon Mill's remarks (i. 1, § 2) about "the comparative functions of
labour and natural powers/' Ruskin notes :
"The fallacy in this being of no importance is not worth
exposing, but note it. The question is not whether muscular
action of man in moving things supersedes natural powers; but
how far natural powers can be made also to supersede this natural
action."
REJECTED BOOKS. — "Messrs. Puttick and Simpson have sold by auction a
number of books ' having the autograph of John Ruskin, and notes of his
reasons for removing them from his library.' One book goes 'because its
owner has never read it ' ; another ' because there is no hope of reading
now.' A book of old Italian legends went because 'life is too short for
legends now ' ; and the National Gallery of Pictures by the Great Masters is
banished as ' an old school-book of the stupidest — done with at last ! ' '
(The Pen, May 29, 1880.)
ANECDOTA, ETC.
PERSONALIA
HOW RUSKIN WROTE
GRAMMAR
RUSKIN AND TYPOGRAPHY (WITH SOME
LETTERS)
AUTHOR AND PRINTERS (WITH SOME
LETTERS)
AS CHILDREN'S FRIEND (WITH SOME
LETTERS)
MASTER AND SERVANTS (WITH A LETTER)
RUSKIN AND THE BRICKLAYER
AS ENGINEER: A MEMORIAL AT FUL-
KING
A DAY ON DERWENTWATER
A DRAWING OF A FEATHER; AND
BUTTERFLIES
AT THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE
A GARDEN PARTY AT MISS INGELOW'S
TOBACCO
AN OLD COLLIER
RUSKIN AND CARLYLE
RUSKIN AND FREDERIC HARRISON
THE EAGLE'S EYE
THE BRANTWOOD POST-BAG
RUSKIN'S GOOD-BYE
OBITER DICTA
ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENT
ART, IMMORTALITY, AND NATURE
"BELIEVING" AND "KNOWING"
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
CATS IN HEAVEN
CORY'S "IONICA"
THE ETHICS OF "EXPERTISING"
THE GUIDES OF LONDON
HOGARTH
HOW MUCH DID SHAKESPEARE MEAN?
HOW TO BECOME AN ARTIST
VICTOR HUGO
IMMORALITY
KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD
LEEDS TOWN HALL
LUINI AT LUGANO
MODERN WARFARE
NOTES ON TURNER'S "LIBER STUDI-
ORUM "
SARAH GRAND'S "IDEALA"
SCOTT'S MANUSCRIPT
THE ART OF MISQUOTATION
"THE PRETTIEST THING IN NATURE
THE TRUE KNIGHT
THE TRUE LADY
WALT WHITMAN
WORK AND RHYME
"UNTO THIS LAST"
MISCELLANEA
A GHOST-STORY AT CHAMOUNI
A JAPANESE VIEW OF RUSKIN
PIRATED RUSKINS
RUSKIN AND TURNER
TOLSTOI ON RUSKIN
RUSKIN'S NAME ON GIOTTO'S TOWER
ANECDOTA, ETC.
PERSONALIA
How RUSKIN WROTE. — The care with which Rusk in wrote and revised has
already been amply explained in this edition. But some further particulars may
be added. He would often, after revising his MS., have it read out to him by a
friend or assistant, in order the better to judge of the sound of his words. He
used to write on a flat table, not on a desk. He used a cork pen-holder with
a fine steel pen. Unlike some authors, however, he was "not at all a slave
to his tools. He could write anywhere, on anything, with anything; he wanted
no pen-wiper, no special form of paper, or other ' fad. '" l As has been already
explained, much of his literary work was done in foreign inns, or wayside
lodgings.2 When at home, he commonly used — in his earlier years — blue foolscap
or quarto (such as has been employed in this edition for the facsimiles of his MS.) ;
in his later years he preferred ruled white foolscap. A good deal of his work was
written, in the first instance, in bound note-books ; this was especially his habit
when he was abroad. His first rough copy was often transcribed by an assistant
or secretary. He revised his first proofs very largely, but he was impatient, as he
often said, of final revises, and this work, as we have seen, was for many years
committed to Mr. W. H. Harrison's care.3
GRAMMAR. — "I remember asking how such a master of English could allow
himself to write such a sentence as 'And I didn't want to.' He laughingly
replied in parody of my remark : ' I have never yet written good English grammar,
and I never mean to.'" ("John Ruskin : Some Personal Recollections," in the
Daily News, February 17, 1900.)
RUSKIN AND TYPOGRAPHY. — In everything that concerned the appearance of his
books, Ruskin was most particular. An article, entitled ' ' Mr. Ruskin and the
Typographic Art," appeared in the Scottish Typographical Circular of August 1892, and
was reprinted with additions by Mr. Henry Jowett in Haxelfs Magazine, September
1892 (vol. vi. pp. 246-250). The first article described the format of the original
editions of Ruskin's books as published by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. To this
description, notes were added by Mr. Jowett, who, as manager of the printing
works at Aylesbury of Messrs. Hazell, Watson & Viney, also described the books
which that firm printed for Mr. Allen during the years 1873 to 1886.
The article in the Scottish Typographical Circular goes into various minutiae of
the original editions as "furnishing an object-lesson in typographic art": —
''The first item we may take up is the depth and breadth of Mr. Ruskin's page,
or rather pages, for he has a major page for his more important works such as
Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, and a minor size for such works as The
Two Paths. The larger page is 42 ems pica in depth by 25 ems broad, the smaller
1 W. G. Collingwood, Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1900, p. 347.
2 See Vol. I. p. xxx.
* See above, p. 93.
713
714 RUSKINIANA
30 x 17 ; but practically both pages may be held to be the one, for the smaller is as
nearly as possible an exact replica, in reduced proportion, of the greater. Any
one who views one of Mr. Ruskin's Modern Painters from the standpoint of the
harmony of its proportions will at once say, 'It is a shapely page.' ... It is as
nearly as an oblong can be made so, modelled on the proportions which artists
have assigned to be the finest types of the human countenance."
Mr. Jowett (of Messrs. Hazell, Watson & Viney, Limited) notes upon this that
Ruskin made the size of the page a careful study, though he adopted many
varieties : — " Thus Fors page is different from, and not so symmetrical as that of
the octavo 'Works Series/ although both are printed on the same sized paper, —
medium 8vo. Mr. Ruskin once wrote to me, 'I had forgotten, if ever I knew,
that Fors page was not the same as the Works.' Then there is the Knight's Faith
and Ulric, in both of which the type (pica modern — 'this delightful type,' wrote
Mr. Ruskiu) and the size of the page are different from any other ; yet both were
his choice. The Ulric page was imitated from an old edition of Miss Edgeworth.
The first proof he criticised thus : —
'Don't you think a quarter inch off this page, as enclosed, would look
better? The type is very nice. How delicious a bit of Miss Edgeworth's
is, like this ! '
When the page so reduced was submitted, he replied, ' I think the enclosed page
an entirely nice and right one.' Ida was another page of his choice, and greatly
approved. 'The new page of Ida,' he wrote, 'is quite beautiful.' His title-pages,
too, were arranged with great care ; he used to draw them out in pen and ink,
indicating the size and position of the lines and letters. Technical readers will
note," continues Mr. Jowett, " that nearly all Ruskin's titles consist of plain roman
or titling letters, interspersed with italics. Praeterita title may roughly be taken
as a typical one, and of this he wrote, ' I think the Prceterita title-page delightful.' "
"The next item," says the Scottish Typographical Circular, "is his choice of
type, which is old-style letter. The size is small pica, with a thick lead between
the lines ; so that with good spacing, clearly-read type, and uniform colour, the
whole page presents that tender equable grey which is so grateful to the reader's
eyes. So insistent is Mr. Ruskin that the item of spacing should be well done that
he has been known, when the compositors had carried out an order ' not to space
too close' with somewhat injurious exaggeration, to return the proofs of the volume,
with numerous paragraphs marked to be over-run from almost beginning to end,
solely to remedy this defect." — On this point, Mr. Jowett gives the following
letter : —
"BRANTWOOD, 4<A Feb. 1883.
"DEAR JOWETT, ... I see that the Italian story has got much too
crowded in words. As it chances, this will not matter, for the whole page
must be altered. It is vulgarly square, and must be narrowed so as to
leave equal margin at top and outside, and a little wider spaced between
lines. The book is too short besides, and will every way be improved by
the change. The title is also to be changed to 'The Story of Ida.' Send
me therefore a proof of this enclosed page cut down as marked, and
widen lines a little. Would it not be well to make it a rule that the
type setters should never use less than a given space, A. (as marked on
this list), with a given type? expanding quite frankly after commas and
semicolons as far as was needed. This would save me a lot of trouble,
and I should think, you also (I suppose of course that you don't charge
alteration of crowded type as corrections). What are chargeable ' correc-
tions' is a curious point-of-honour question. How is it settled? Some-
times, / think the Printer should pay the Author ! but on the other
hand, I suppose Mr. Carlyle's corrections always, and mine sometimes, were
as bad as another Book ! or worse. — Ever affectionately yours,
' "J. RUSKIN."
ANECDOTA, ETC. 715
It is next pointed out in the Scottish Typographical Circular that Ruskin allowed
no divided word to end the foot-line on any of his pages : ' ' This may be made
a note of by both compositors and readers : every little tells in the perfection of
artistic work." — On this point, Mr. Jowett tells that in issuing Ulric in parts, the
word "stockings" happened to be divided; "and thus 'stock-' ended one part,
and ' ings ' began the next ! In all my correspondence with him," says Mr. Jowett,
<f I never knew Mr. Ruskin so annoyed : —
' DEAR JOWETT, — I'm really a little cross with you — for once — for doing
such an absurd thing as jointing a word between the two parts. Did I
really pass Part II. with half a word at the end?'
This unfortunately was followed by many weeks' silence, and entire abstinence
from any kind of work. The Master had been seriously ill ! The silence was
broken by the following : —
'My DEAR JOWETT, — That unlucky extra worry with Ulric was just the
drop too much, which has cost me a month's painful illness again. . . .' "
AUTHOR AND HIS PRINTERS. — ' ' Mr. Ruskin," adds Mr. Jowett, ' ' was always most
considerate of difficulties and appreciative of help. He would alter words and
sentences to avoid difficulties in spacing or divisions.1 But he was sometimes
righteously severe on a slip or error or excess of zeal : —
"This is really too bad," he wrote; "that confounded reader of yours
must have changed paternal into maternal grandfather8 by way of doing
something clever ! It's the worst mistake we've had yet. See that it's
altered before you print more."
Mr. Ruskin's name, says Mr. Jowett elsewhere, "has naturally become a house-
hold word in our establishment, and from his many acts of kindness that name is
never mentioned but with affectionate regard." * ' ' On the occasion of the building
of a new wing, Jowett sent him a newspaper cutting in which it was mentioned that
there had been no tenders for contract issued in the ordinary way, but that the business
had been conducted in accordance with the tenets of St. George's Guild. He wrote
in reply : ' Dear Jowett, I have rarely read a news paragraph with so much pleasure,
and am glad my name's connected with it.' " * Of his considerateness in the case of
the printers who were engaged in his earlier works, mention has already been made.6
With Mr. Jowett, Ruskin kept up a familiar correspondence — asking for his help,
taking his advice, and often revealing his intimate feelings. Extracts from such
letters will be found in the Introduction to Vol. XXXV., and among the Letters or
Bibliographical Appendix in Vol. XXXVII.
Some letters have also been printed which Ruskin addressed to Mr. Chester, the
reader at Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.'s establishment (see Vol. XXVII. p. 132 n.):—
"DENMARK HILT,, Thursday. [1871.] 6
" I want to go down into Derbyshire on Monday, if possible, and I'll
settle Michael Angelo there — but I must have my good little Fors* afloat
first. — Ever gratefully yours, J. RUSKIN."
* I think she's a little spicy this time.
1 "I can pad, but can't shorten," he was wont to say to the printers (R. E.
Pengelly's John Ruskin, p. 108).
2 This misprint occurred in Fors Clavigera, Letter 63 : see Vol. XXVIII. p. xxxi.
3 "John Ruskin," in Hazel? s Magazine, March 1887 (p. 119).
* R. E. Pengelly's John Ruskin, p. 8,5.
* See Vol. XIV. p. 457.
8 From Walter T. Spencer's Catalogue, No. 108, 1902, p. 46.
716 RUSKINIANA
Extracts from some other letters to him in the same Catalogue illustrate
relations with his printer. Thus, 1871, "All is right now but the 'Robert Steven-
son,' page II.1 I mean the great engineer ; you must put the name right, if it
isn't (/ don't know engineers' names) " ; and, again, " October 22 [1871], — Dear
Mr. Chester, I never knew anything so wonderful as the way you have got my
scrawl printed. Literally, only two words wrong in the 18 pages."
As CHILDREN'S FRIEND.* — "He knew the names of my dolls," says Miss May
Batemau, "and the exact 'difference of character' which separated Mathilde with
a wide gulf from my sister's Cerise, and the immeasurable superiority of my ' Kate
Greenaway' Dorothea to both. But he never gave us toys — except in one sad
instance which I shall recall later. I think he believed in one learning uncon-
sciously, as the sunflowers turn unconsciously to the sun. He made such learning
the dearest enjoyment of a day's merrymaking — something widely different from
Mrs. Markham's history or Butter's spelling. Yet nobody could have been stricter
in matters of discipline and restraint. I remember his being very nearly annoyed
with me because, in the winter, I used to sit hunched up ungracefully on the
very verge of the embers of our old-fashioned dining-room grate ; and I had to
promise to sit in the cold on the extreme opposite side of the room until I could
control my inclinations ! And a letter of July 13, 1883, contains the suggestion of
a reproof of my over-hasty reading : —
'DARLING GERALDINE, — Your letter's lovely, and I am so very glad you
are reading Scott. Read very slowly, notice every word, and stop steadily
at a given time, and don't read a word more. There's as much heroism
in stopping properly in a novel as in bearing pain.'
The second or third day that Mr. Ruskin ever spent with us is typical of many
others. In the centre of a group, of which grown-ups and children alike formed
part, Mr. Ruskiu sat, books and pictures in hand ; either the original manu-
script and etchings of Miss Alexander's Roadside Songs of Tuscany or the proofs,
and Mr. Hollyer's clever photographs — I forget which. But I know that as he
read from the one and showed us the other, he held us under a spell which left
us breathless and subdued, which comes back and holds me now, long years after.
It was a pathetic sight in a way — the bent silver head and scholarly form, with
the student droop from the neck — the one arm thrown caressingly round the child
on his knee, the other resting on the open folio. He was not content with merely
reading ; often at the close of a passage he would turn back to explain the deriva-
tion of a word or to illuminate some unfamiliar passage. . . .
e ' I have said that Mr. Ruskin never gave us toys — except on one occasion. And
that occasion was a trying one. For the box arrived addressed to me, to 'Miss
Geraldine,' instead of to the 'Miss Gabrielle' — the owner of the doll 'Cerise'
— for whom it was intended. And great was the blow thereof, for it was an
ebony Solitaire board, with rare marbles. ... Of course I wrote to thank him
for it, when this answer came : —
' . . . I certainly must and will take you away from your bcoks, but
not to play Solitaire. The box was meant for Gabie' — a pet name for
Gabrielle — 'not for you. ... I solemnly impressed on B it was for
Miss Gabrielle, and so solemnly that I suppose I tumbled him over on the
other side, and he went back to Geraldine. . . .'
1 Of the original edition of Fors Clavigera, Letter 9 (Vol. XXVH. p. 152).
2 At the May Day Celebration at Whitelands College in 1890, Mr. Faunthorpe,
the Principal, quoted a letter from Ruskin in which he said, <fMy love for children
makes me the collared serf of a little maid of six" (Pall Mall Gazette, May 2,
1890).
ANECDOTA, ETC. 717
The receiving of a letter is, as Mr. Ruskin well knew, one of a child's greatest
joys, and my act of necessary renunciation brought me another two days later,
tripping on the footsteps of the first, as it were : —
'DARLING GERALDINE (hut I don't ever call you anything but Geraldine
now, do I ?), — You're a dear little Dine about the box ; but I knew you
would be, and I'm glad it was misdirected, for you have had the double
pleasure of first getting it and then giving it ; and I've had the double
pleasure of giving it to you both.
' But I must find something to keep us both — off our books ! — Ever
your lovingest, J. R.' "
(" Recollections of Ruskin," in Black and White, January 27, 1900.)
MASTER AND SERVANT. — "Mr. Ruskiu and I were dining together. During the
meal, as we were enjoying a rhubarb tart, I happened to say that it was the first
I had tasted that season, and remarked how delicious it was. The Professor was
delighted at my appreciation of his rhubarb, and, ringing for one of the servants,
he said: 'Please tell Jackson I want him.' When he came into the room his
master said: 'Jackson, I am very pleased to tell you that your first pulling of
rhubarb is quite a success ; and my friend here, who has had some pie made of it,
says it is delicious.'
" When we had finished dining, a servant came in, bringing a number of lighted
candles. The windows being shaded by the overhanging trees above, the room
was almost dark, even before the sun had gone down. After placing candles she
was leaving the room, when she said : ' Please, sir, there is a beautiful sky just now
over the Old Man.' The Professor rose from his chair and said : ' Thank you,
Kate, for telling us.' He then left the room, but soon returned. ' Yes,' he said,
'it is worth seeing,' and he led the way upstairs to his bedroom.
" It was certainly a glorious sight — the sun sinking behind the Coniston Old
Man Mountain, and the mist and ripples on the lake tinged with a crimson flush.
We sat in the window recess till the sun went down behind the mountain. Not
a word was spoken by either of us. I was thinking of the charming relation
and sympathy manifested between master and servant." (The King, January 27,
1900.)
" I have heard of Ruskin entertaining his guests as hospitably at Corpus as at
Brantwood. A friend described to us the well-served breakfast, ample beyond all
appetite of host or guest, and Ruskin fearing to disappoint the cook, sending
friendly and appreciative messages. 'A very nice relish for breakfast, sir,' says the
scout, offering some particular dish. ' A very nice relish at any time,' says Ruskin
kindly, refusing, ' and tell the cook I said so.' " (Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and
Browning, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, 1892, p. 131.)
"The memory of John Ruskin is dear to all who came into personal contact
with him. It is especially so to his old servants, among whom Mr. David Fudge,1
for fifty years family coachman.
" ' David ' would daily drive him through the Surrey lanes, then (ten or twelve
years ago) untouched by the builder. The sight of a brooklet or of a picturesque
bit of road, said Mr. Fudge, would always call for the eager request : ' Drive through
there, David ; drive through there ! ' The Professor was a great walker, and would
often dismount from his brougham and set out across country. 'Then, 1 suppose,
you would meet your master to take him home after the walk?' 'Yes; before
leaving the carriage he would insist on sketching out a plan of the road I was to
take to meet him. And more than often I found him waiting for me — such was
his pace and his knowledge of the footpaths. My master was a very plain liver,
1 For mention of Fudge, see Vol. XXVII1« p. 531.
718 RUSKINIANA
and was almost a teetotaler. He was very reserved in his ways, and kept but
little company. But, mind you,' added Mr. Fudge, with emphasis, ' he was as
good a master as it is possible to have. All the old family servants are amply
provided for. I have many a time seen my late master heartily shake the hand of
a crossing sweeper whom he thought well of.'
" Mr. Fudge proudly brought forth from his breast pocket a number of
affectionate letters written to him in later years. Here is one, dated from Brant-
wood, 1883, which ' David ' allows us to reproduce : —
f DB^B DAVID, — Here is your cheque at last. I never get half my day's
letters answered, and they get pushed into drawers and lost. I can't help
it. The wet weather has come at last, and I begin to get through my
business. — Ever your affectionate master,
' J. RuSKIN.'"
("Mr. Ruskin and his old Coachman," in the Daily Chronicle, January 22, 1900.)
" Like all Ruskin's servants, David Fudge is provided for in his old age, and
every month since his retirement, he has received a cheque from Braritwood. The
old man keeps all his letters with a jealous affection. In one of them Ruskin
says: 'Dearest David, — I am sorry to hear of your illness, but hope you will be
better. I enclose £5, with which you may be enabled to buy some comforts.'"
( Western Morning News, January 22, 1900.)
<e His servant Downs J was his devoted slave. ' Downsie-Pownsie ! ' he would
say, in smiling accents, ' was he not well ? Poor old Downsie ! ' as the old man
hobbled along slightly rheumatic, when staying at his last home in the St. George's
Farm, the other side of the hill. Old Downs used to relate many an anecdote
of 'the young Master,' as he called him.
" ' He were a funny man,' he said ; ' once, when we went back to Switzerland,
he says : " Come along, Downsie ; let's go and see if it is still there ! " and I
trots along' (the old man puffed in example — he was fat). '1 wonders what
"it" was. Well, we goes down to the lake, and he points and he says, "Yes,
there it is — there it is, Downsie!" " Where?" says I. "Why, there! Don't you
see it?" I saw nothing except an old stump in the water. "Why, the old stump;
there it is, the same as ever ! I used to come and sit there fourteen years ago !
And there it is ! " ' A curious example of Ruskin's vividness of remembrance of
detail.
" ' We were marching along in the Alps/ said Downs, ( him and Mr. Ward.
Ah, Mr. Ward was a gentleman ; he could speak French like a native. Well, they
were walking along, and talking, talking, talking — and I was getting hungry, I was.
So I asks, " Beg pardon, sir ; is it time for dinner yet, sir?" " No, not yet ! " Well,
I s'pose he saw my face fall, for he says, "Oh, it's you who are hungry, eh, Downs?
Well, go along on and order lunch ; there's the inn over that next hill — and order
us something nice, there's a good Downsie ! " So I went, and I knew what he liked,
so I ordered a dish of mushrooms and milk — and it was good, I promise you.' Such
was the master to his man." (" Reminiscences of Ruskin," by Howard Swan, in
the Westminster Gazette, 1900.)
In a letter to Professor Norton from a friend of his who had visited Ruskiu at
Brantwood there is a pleasant reference to Downs. " Instead of walking home,"
he says, "as we had arranged to do, the faithful Downs, who wished his duty
conveyed to you all, insisted on rowing us back as well as over. It was pleasant
to hear him talk of his master and of his own pride in appearing in person in
Fors." (Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton, vol. ii. p. 135.)
1 For mention of Downs, Ruskin's gardener, and afterwards factotum at Shef-
field, see Vol. XIX. p. xxxi. ; Vol. XX. p. xlii. ; Vol. XXVIII. pp. 531, 769 ;
Vol. XXIX. p. 27; and. Vol. XXX. p. xxvii.
ANECDOTA, ETC. 719
RUSKIN AND THE BRICKLAYER. — An artisan living near Denmark Hill is "the
proud possessor of an autograph letter from Mr. Ruskin, received in reply to a
communication asking counsel and assistance regarding a young bricklayer who
displayed considerable ability as a draughtsman. Mr. lluskin promptly replied,
stating that he was getting old and had neither time nor ability for active effort
in the direction solicited, and concluding in his usual encouraging manner : ' If
your bricklayer is a man of real talent, depend upon it, this will ultimately
secure for him both recognition and position.'" (Pall Mall Gazette, June 20,
1891.)
RUSKIN AS ENGINEER. — "Few people are aware that John Ruskin has on one
occasion at least played with remarkable success the part of a hydraulic engineer.
The inhabitants of Fulking, a little village in Sussex, not far from Brighton,
had for a long time a great difficulty in obtaining an adequate supply of drinking
water. A hilly gathering ground was near, but nature seemed to have intended
the water for other localities. All sorts of expedients were adopted, but all
proved a failure. It happened that Ruskiu occasionally visited the district, and
the idea occurred to somebody that he might be able to help. The request was a
strange one, but Ruskin began to think what could be done, and in the -end
devised a scheme which has given Fulking as much water as it can ever hope to
consume. Works have of course been required, but they did not cost very much,
and they certainly do not disfigure the locality. The people have not been slow
to show their gratitude for the boon thus conferred, and near the well which
gives the inhabitants a constant service they have erected a beautiful marble
memorial, on which is a tablet, bearing in gilt letters the following record :
' To the glory of God, and in honour of John Ruskin. Psalm 78 : That they
might set their hope in God, and not forget to keep His commandments, who
brought streams also out of the rock.'" (Pall Mall Gazette, August 26, 1891,
from the Manchester Examiner.)1
A DAY ON DERWENTWATER. — "A friend, one of the truest Ruskin had, tells
me of a memorable day on the lake with the Professor during that visit [1867].
He was staying at the hotel at Portinscale, and arranged for her to come over
with her hostess to spend a long day with him on Derwentwater. ... f If there
is one thing I can claim to be able to do,' he said, fit is to guide you to all
that is best worth seeing and caring for on this lake. I know every tree and
stone upon its shores, and the colour of every shallow and the clear deeps of
every pool.' So saying, they embarked, and leaving the river mouth and its
rustling reeds, coasted all down the quiet western shore, touching land here and
there to see the particular beauty of this or that tree or rock, or to get this or
that particular view, loitering here to get some effect of gleam upon the grassy
bottom of the lake, or rowing there to see a special reflected light on ripple or
in shallow, he talking all the time of the wonder and the glory round about
them ; sad sometimes, as it seemed in sheer perverseness ; glad sometimes and
hopeful when the talk of the rest was sad, but making all feel that the hours
were too swift and the eventide come too soon. . . .
" He once told a neighbour of mine that when he first knew Keswick it was
a place he thought too beautiful to live in, — and when in later years he paid
a visit to aa Oxford friend in Underskiddaw he was constantly expressing his
wonder and amaze at the extraordinary beauty of the grouping of the hills to the
west, and his delight in the level valley plain between Derweutwater and Bassen-
thwaite as giving value to the mountain scenery." (Ruskin and the English Lakes,
by the Rev. H. D. Rawusley, 1901, pp. 28, 29.)
1 The inscription was by Ruskin's friend, Henry Willett : see a letter to him,
dated June 16, 1887, in Vol. XXXVII. Fulking' is under the Downs, between
Edburton and Poynings.
720 . RUSKINIANA
A DRAWING OF A FEATHER, AND BUTTERFLIES. — " I well remember hearing, whea
a drawing by him of a hen's feather was lying on a table at some distance from
where he was sitting, he asked a child who was in the room to bring it to him.
Holding the paper carefully by the edges, with both hands, she crossed the room
slowly and cautiously, her head turned away lest her breath should blow the
feather off the paper ! He said it was the prettiest compliment he had ever been
paid."
" A young scientist who both believed, and stoutly maintained his belief in,
much that Mr. Ruskin disapproved, was forgiven all his heresies because he 'could
paint butterflies so delightfully — flying, not with pins through them,' and the
Master was never tired of giving him lessons in the laying on of colour. Indeed,
at Brantwood most of the daylight was spent by his pupil in painting at a big
table in the drawing-room window, when Turners, and Bewicks, and William
Hunts were requisitioned as copies." ("Happy Memories of John Ruskin," by
L. Allen Barker, in the Puritan, May 1900, p. 346.)
A LESSON AT THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE. — " In the room of an old art pupil
of Mr. Ruskin's at the Working Men's College I admired a very clever sketch of
a dead bird in carmine-lake on the wall, and asked whose it was. ' John Ruskin's,'
said my friend. ' You know how he used to come up to our easels, one after the
other, and tell us where we were right, with a word of praise, and where wrong
with a " Look here ; this is the way to do that ! " Well, that bird which you have
just admired, Ruskin did one night on the edge of my drawing-paper, in less than
ten minutes, to give me a hint. He dashed in the sketch as fast as brush could
go ; and the breast, which is so effective, he did by dabbing the inside of his
thumb on the wet paint. I wouldn't part with it for anything. A year or two
ago he came to see me, and I showed him his sketch and reminded him of when
and how he did it. Of course he'd forgotten all about it ; but he looked at it.
and said smilingly, "Well, it's very well done."'" (A correspondent in the Pull
Mall Gazette, April 9, 1887. For other notices of Ruskin's classes at the Working
Men's College, see Vol. V. pp. xxxvii.-xl.)
"In most cases Mr. Ruskin announced no particular subject when he gave
these informal talks, for such they were. It was his way to speak to the men of
anything that occurred to him, ranging over a variety of topics, but mainly
dealing with literature and art as bearing on life. We used to look forward to
such talks with immense interest. Formless and planless as they were, the effect
on the hearers was immense. It was a wonderful bubbling up of all manner of
glowing thoughts ; for mere eloquence I never heard aught like it. One had the
sense of ceaseless flashings of inspiration in every other sentence.
"These talks were not his main work at the College. That was done in his
drawing class room. For about five years he was about the most regular teacher
we ever had. Every Thursday night you might see his brougham waiting at the
door at ten o'clock to take him back to Denmark Hill." (Printed from a private
letter "by one who was often present" in the Bookman, March 1900, p. 191.)
A GARDEN PARTY AT Miss INGELOW'S. — "It was at a garden party at Miss Jean
Ingelow's at Kensington upon a lovely warm summer afternoon in 1875 or 1876.
The guests had tea in the house, and then passed into the little garden, which was
soon filled by a crowd of interesting people, among whom was Mr. Ruskin. After
a time Miss Ingelow introduced us, and then followed a most interesting talk. My
husband said something about his experience in France during the Franco-German
war. Then Mr. Ruskin waxed eloquent and impassioned, and burst into a flood
of talk. In his own inimitable English he sketched the character of the two
peoples — the French and the German : their innate difference, their good and bad
qualities. In burning words he declared his pity for the misery and degradation
which had overtaken France, and in prophetic strain mourned over the hideous
war spirit which had possessed Germany. The beauty of phrase, the impassioned
ANECDOTA, ETC. 721
utterance, the flow of magical words, were wonderful to listen to. Now and then
my husband would mention a fact or show some sign of sympathy, and then again
poured forth the eloquent stream of denunciation, admiration, criticism, far-searching
thought, sympathy, and scorn. For nearly an hour this delightful lecture con-
tinued. Then Miss Ingelow came up, accompanied by a very pretty girl, beautifully
dressed in an elegant toilette of pink silk and white lace. She was introduced as
a great admirer of Mr. Ruskiu, who was most anxious for an interview. The crowd
was so great that we could not move away far, and were obliged therefore to listen
to the conversation that ensued. Mr. Ruskin at once turned to the young lady
with a smiling, devoted manner. I was greatly amused and interested to see the
gifted and eloquent speaker plunge at once into the inanities of compliment and
personal chit-chat. A little gossamer handkerchief slipped from the pretty small
hand. Instantly Mr. Ruskin stooped to pick it up, and presented it with a
compliment and an adoring look worthy of a love-sick swain of twenty. It
was curious." (James Macdonell, Journalist, by W. Robertson Nicoll, 1890, pp. 310-
311.)
TOBACCO. * — "February 12, 1882. — You are evidently unaware that Mr. Ruskin
entirely abhors the practice of smoking, in which he has never indulged. His
dislike of it is mainly based upon his belief (no doubt a true one) that a cigar or
pipe will very often make a man content to be idle for any length of time, who
would not otherwise be so. The excessive use of tobacco amongst all classes
abroad, both in France and Italy, and the consequent spitting everywhere and
upon everything, has not tended to lessen his antipathy. I have heard him allow,
however, that there is reason in the soldiers' and the sailors' pipe, as being some
protection against the ill effects of exposure, etc. As to the effect of tobacco on
the brain, I know that he considers it anything but beneficial."
AN OLD COLLIER.* — "BRANTWOOD, Sept. 3, 1892. — SIR, — I was sorry to see by
the leader in yesterday's Daily Telegraph [Sept. 2] on Emanuel Hospital what a
half-hearted view is taken of this 'bit of Old London.' Your writer asks what
is to be learnt from such a 'pile of crazy tenements'? He might as well ask
what there is to be learnt by a crazy old collier brig in Folkestone Harbour?
And this reminds me of a very whole-hearted article in your paper some years
ago on an old collier, the Brotherly Love, then likely to share the same fate as
this old Emanuel Hospital, and how Professor Ruskin read the article aloud to
us, and how delighted and touched he was by it, and how he at once went to
his study, and wrote a cheque for a hundred guineas, to be forwarded to your
office, in case there was still any chance of helping to save this old ship from
becoming firewood."
RUSKIN AND CARLYLE. — " Occasionally Ruskin came, and it was pleasant to see
how serene and beaming was his face, so worn and touched in those days, when
he entered that room at Chelsea. fMr. Carlyle,' he said one evening, fhow few
people I know who really can sit down at their own little table and pour out their
cup of tea from their own little teapot, and there think and say what is to them
true without regard to the world's clamour ! ' Carlyle said : ' That used to be the
characteristic of the English people ; whenever you had an Englishman you had a
1 From p. 110 of Study and Stimulants; or the Use of Intoxicants and Narcotics
in relation to Intellectual Life, as illustrated by personal communications on the
subject, from Men of Letters and of Science. Edited by A. Arthur Reade (Man-
chester, 1883). The name of the secretary or other person who wrote on Ruskin's
behalf is not given ; he himself was ill at the time.
2 From a letter by Mr. Arthur Severn in the Daily Telegraph, September
5, 1892.
722 RUSKINIANA
man with an opinion of his own ; but one doesn't find it so now.' . . . The con-
versation fell upon the cruelty of sports, and Ruskin referred with enthusiasm to
Emerson's lines entitled Forbearance.1 . . . Carlyle was very compassionate. I well
remember the wrath with which he spoke one evening to Mr. Ruskin and myself
of seeing at the Zoological Gardens living mice put into the cages of the snakes. . . .
The affection between Ruskin and Carlyle was beautiful." a (M. D. Conway's Auto-
biography, vol. ii. pp. 99, 101, 106.)
"1 heard a pretty account once from Mr. Alfred Lyttelton on a visit paid by
Ruskiii to Carlyle. Ruskin had been ill not long before, and as he talked on of
something he cared about, his eyes lighted up and he seemed agitated and moved.
Carlyle stopped him short, saying the subject was too interesting. ' You must
take care,' he said, with that infinite kindness which Carlyle could show; 'you
will be making yourself ill once more.' And Ruskin quite simply like a child
stopped short. 'You are right,' he said, calling Carlyle 'master,' and then went
on to talk of something else, as dull no doubt as anything could be that Ruskin
and Carlyle could talk about together." (Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning,
by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, 1892, p. 117.)
RUSKIN AND FREDERIC HARRISON. — "Ruskin once asked me to tell him what I
meant by a passage in a published piece of mine. I fell into the trap, and stated
my meaning in a private letter. ' What ! ' he wrote back, ' do you suppose I care
what you mean or don't mean? But I love you.'" ("Memoirs of John Ruskin,"
in Literature, February 3, 1900, p. 106.)
THE EAGLE'S EYE. — Somebody once said to Ruskin that he had the eye of an
eagle. " I should be sorry," he replied, " if my eyes were no better than an eagle's.
Doth the eagle know what is in the pit? I do.' (Daily News, February 17, 1900.)
THE BRANTWOOD POST-BAG. — "Breakfast at Brantwood was at ten; but the
master had been up since six, and his day's work was done before he met his
guests at breakfast. With breakfast came the post-bag — solid proof of the penalties
of greatness. The number of parcels, to say nothing of letters, from all sorts of
people, were terrible to contemplate. Sketches, volumes of poems — how we groaned
under those poems ! — manuscript awaiting criticism, and letters — some admirative,
some remonstrating, not to say impertinent — upon every conceivable subject ! The
known handwritings were speedily sorted out, and a certain pretty ritual was
fone through every morning. One letter was always eagerly sought for and read
rst — that from the Joanie of Prceterita. We were quite sure that he could not
have got through his day if the looked-for letter had gone amissing." ("John
Ruskin in the Eighties," in the Outlook, October 21, 1899.)
RUSKIN'S GOOD-BYE. — " I used to think that nothing could exceed the grace and
warmth of his greeting, till the time came when he said good-bye. Holding his
guest's hand in his two, he would say a few wise and tender words of farewell,
and wind up with a kind of apostolic blessing." ("John Ruskin: Some Personal
Recollections," in the Daily News, February 17, 1900.)
1 "Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
And loved so well a high behaviour,
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?
O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! "
2 Compare Mrs. Carlyle's description, Vol. XVIII. p. xlvii.
ANECDOTA, ETC. 723
OBITER DICTA
ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENT. — Sir Benjamin Baker, the civil engineer, told the
following anecdote at a discussion on "The ^Esthetic Treatment of Bridge Struc-
ture" : "When very young, he had thought he could do without architects, and
he had designed and carried out some very pretty work indeed. It had been so
pretty that it had attracted the attention of Mr. Ruskin, who had mentioned it in
one of his lectures. There had been columns and arches and scrolls in iron-
work, and Mr. Ruskin had said that he had seen it, and that it made him wish
that he had been born a blind fish in Kentucky cave." He thought afterwards
that Mr. Ruskin had let him down very easily. (Minutes of Proceedings of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. cxlv., 1900-1901, part iii. pp. 208-209, quoted
in a letter by Mr. Beresford Pite in the Times, December 9, 1902.)
ART, IMMORTALITY, AND NATURE. — " I spent many happy days with him at
Denmark Hill, never to be forgotten. One thing I remember was a strange saying.
I said, ' Mr. Ruskin, must not a man be good to be a great artist?' His answer was :
' Perugino did not believe in the immortality of the soul. Nature is before you ; if
you see that, it is enough ; the rest of you must take its chance.' " (" Ruskin as I
Knew Him," by Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., in St. George, vol. v. p. 294.)
" BELIEVING" AND "KNOWING." — "It's no use," said Dr. John Brown once,
" arguing with Ruskin when he says wild things. I tried once and had to give it
up. I had begun saying, 'Now, Ruskin, you surely do not believe that?' 'Believe
it! Sir, I KNOW it.'" (British Weekly, February 1, 1900.)
BOOKS FOR GIRLS. — At a distribution of the prizes at the Chesterfield School
of Art, a letter was read from Ruskin, saying he had told his publisher to send
as a gift Sesame and Lilies and Eagle's Nest as better books for girls than his
general Oxford lectures. He urged them to get Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel and
Lady of the Lake, and Carlyle's Past and Present, prizes he thinks pre-eminently
deserving the name. (Date unknown.)
"CATS IN HEAVEN." — In a letter thus entitled, "Philozoist" quotes from a
letter addressed by Ruskin to Mrs. Talbot, who had sent him the story of a cat
which perished in the effort to save her four kittens from a burning theatre. She
laid the first three which she had rescued down at her master's feet for protection,
and then rushed back, scorched and singed, to fetch the last from the flames.
When the fire was conquered at last, the charred remains of cat and kitten were
found together. Ruskin wrote of this : " That cat is blessed. I hope to meet her
in heaven." ( Westminster Gazette, August 23, 1900.)
CORY'S " IONICA." — "Mr. Ruskin is one of the recently enrolled admirers of
Mr. Cory's seclusive muse. A year or two ago a friend happened to quote in
some writing which came under Mr. Ruskin's notice, the opening stanza from one
of Mr. Cory's happiest pieces, the 'Mimnermus in Church.' (Ruskin's remarks on
the lines have been already given, Vol. XXIV. p. xxiii.)
" In writing to Mr. Cory shortly afterwards, the correspondent mentioned the
chance which had brought the verses under Mr. Ruskin's notice, and his appreciation
of them" (Pall Mall Gazette, June 18, 1892). Mr. Cory's letter in reply, given in
the same number of the Gazette, contains the following passage : " As I was a
devout reader of Modern Painters, vol. ii. in 184G-1847, and have even now sincere
gratitude to the author for parts of ' Theoria ' and of Seven Lamps, it is now rather
touching to find that he has been interested in my very lowly rimaillerie." This
incident was partly influential in inducing Mr. Cory a year later to re-issue lonica
through Ruskin's publisher.
XXXIV. 2 7
724 RUSKINIANA
THE ETHICS OF " EXPERTISING." — A friend who was staying at Denmark Hill
in 1867 remembers Ruskin being offered some drawings by Prout for £80. "I
know they are worth more," he said, "and I believe myself to be a judge on
that subject. If I take them, I shall give £100." The friend objected that Prout
was dead, and that the intermediary would doubtless get adequate profit on the
£80. ''That," replied Ruskin, "is not for me to go into. I know the value of
this work, and I am bound in honesty to pay for it. Mr. ' , when informed
of the full value, and receiving it, ought to be willing, in the proper degree, to
remunerate further those from whom he himself received the drawings ; and so,
if it be possible, step by step, let the advantage trickle back ; perhaps even to the
widow of the dead worker, if there yet is one. Anyhow, I have my own duty to
see to." (The Spectator, December 22, 1900.)
THE GUIDES OF LONDON. — "I owe more to cabdrivers, than to any other persons
in this world, of material help and good guiding," sent with a cheque for ten
guineas to the Cabdrivers' Benevolent Association. (From an article, "Cabby and
his Employers," in the Globe, June 28, 1886.)
A PICTURE BY HOGARTH. — Mr. John Holmes on one occasion showed Ruskin
at the Working Men's College a picture by Hogarth, representing an abandoned
woman (one of the " Times of the Day" series). "What a fearful sight," he said.
"See," said he, "the conscience of the old wretch is gone. She is dead in tres-
pass and in sins. The Holy Spirit has taken its flight, and she is at peace in
her iniquity. But still the fleas bite. She is scratching herself." ("John Ruskin:
a Reminiscence," by John Holmes, in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent,
Weekly Supplement, April 17, 1886.)
How MUCH DID SHAKESPEARE MEAN ? — " ' I wonder how much Shakespeare really
meant of all that,' he once said to a friend, after listening to a lecture on
Shakespeare. 'I suppose at any rate he meant more than we can follow, and not
less,' said his friend, Frederick Maurice. 'Well, that is what I used to think of
Turner/ he replied sadly, 'and now I don't know.'" ("John Ruskin," by Julia
Wedgewood, in the Contemporary Review, March 1900, p. 339.)
How TO BECOME AN ARTIST. — " ' What course of study should one pursue in
order to become a respectable painter ? ' Ruskin was asked. ' Do you wish to
become an artist?' he said, laying stress on the last word. 'I do, sir.' 'Then
paint everything!'" ("Memories of Ruskin," in the Outlook, June 10, 1899.)
" I remember being profoundly discouraged when Ruskin took up a piece of
chalk and drew some vine leaves for the capital of a column, and said, ' A man
who cannot draw like that at all events should not think of being an architect.'
Then a lady, wishing to bring herself under Mr. Ruskin's notice, asked how long
it would take any one like herself to paint a plum like one of William Hunt's.
Mr. Ruskin replied, ' About eight hours a day for forty years, madam.' " (" A Talk
with Sir Arthur Arnold," in the Young Man, February 1896, p. 41.)
VICTOR HUGO. — "On one occasion, when Mr. Arthur Severn was to lecture at
the London Institution, he mentioned casually to the Professor that he was pro-
posing to quote from The Toilers of the Sea a reference to the artistic effects of a
storm. Mr. Ruskin would not hear of it ; said, indeed, that he should walk out of
the lecture-room the moment Mr. Severn began his quotation, and begged him to sub-
stitute the passage in David Oopperfield.1 Victor Hugo's work, according to Ruskin,
belonged to the 'gas-light' kind of literature." ( Westminster Gazette.)
IMMORTALITY. — "It was half in jest that I would complain to him that to Earth
he gave up what was meant for Infinity, and bent a cosmic passion upon this
round wet pebble of rock and sea. ' Ah, my friend ! ' he answered once when I
spoke of life to come, ' if you could only give me fifty years longer of this life on
1 The passage is praised by Ruskin in Frondes Agresles: see Vol. III. p. 570 n.
ANECDOTA, ETC. 725
earth, I would ask for nothing more ! ' And half that season was granted to him,
and all in vain ; — for what Tithonus may tread for ever unweary the ' gleaming
halls of Morn ' ? " (F. W. H. Myers, Fragments of Prose and Poetry, 1904, p. 91.)
KKHLK CHAPEL, OXFORD. — "'Have you seen Kehle Chapel, Mr. Ruskin?' we
innocently asked him. ' No ! ' ' Are you going to see it ? ' ' No ! If it is
new, it is hideous. Or if it is beautiful, it ought not to he. We don't deserve
it. You clergy ought not to have any beautiful churches. You ought to be out
in the wilderness with St. John the Baptist. When you have converted England, it
will be time to think whether we may have any beautiful things again.' That was
his verdict." (Canon Scott Holland, in the Commonwealth, March 1900.)
THE LEEDS TOWN HALL. — Ruskin, after his lecture at Bradford (Two Paths,
Vol. XVI.), was invited to lecture also at Leeds. In reply, he objected to giving
local or piecemeal addresses and so we must excuse him, adding he should like
and intended to come to Leeds, when he would do his best to crucify the snobs
or charlatans in architecture who could put such an abortion as that tower upon a
town hall of fair Roman composite architecture." (f ' John Ruskin, a Reminiscence,"
by John Holmes, in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, Weekly Supplement,
April 24, 1886.)
" RUSKIN ON LUINI AT LUGANO." — In June 1870 a party of English and American
tourists met Ruskin in the Church of Sta. Maria degli Angioli at Lugano, and
engaged him in conversation with regard to Luini's "Passion of Christ," painted on
the wall of the screen. "Luini's works," said Ruskin, "were relatively few, little
known, and less understood. This was his chief and characteristic work, and he
was thankful that it had not been meddled with by restorers. It was thoroughly
genuine ; and though dirty and dilapidated, those who had eyes to see and souls
to appreciate could yet realise something of the grandeur and genius of the
painter." He went on to speak of "the simple boldness and grandexir of the
composition and the fire and feeling of execution." One of the company dissented.
" Sir," said Ruskin, " Luini is an artist of such superlative excellence that I have
never yet ventured to criticise him in detail." ("Ruskin on Luini at Lugano," by
John Holmes, in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, May 1, 1886, Weekly
Supplement, p. 5 ; reprinted in Two Papers on Ruskin, by John Holmes (Sheffield,
1886).
MODERN WARFARE, — Mr. C. J. Guthrie, in an account of "A Visit to Ruskin in
1880," reports what Ruskin said of the Zulu war. "1 used to think that however
dreadful war is, yet on the whole it developed the grander features in a nation's
character, in a way that commerce, with its petty knaveries and sharp practice,
does not. I always liked British officers, when I chanced to meet them, more than
other professional men. But now " — and his eye kindled — " to think of those defence-
less Zulus being blown to pieces by dynamite !" (British Weekly, February 1, 1900.)
NOTES ON TURNER'S "LiBER STUDIORUSI." — "Apropos of the Turner drawings,
every one knows the ' Little Devil's Bridge ' in the Liber Studiorum series, but
nobody knows why it is so called. Mr. Stopford Brooke, in his Notes on the ' Liber
Studiorum,' speaks of Turner 'marking the desolation of the Upper Alps by the
skeleton of the mule set in the foreground.' The skeleton, however, is not that
of a mule, Mr. Ruskin says, but of a sheep ; and herein he finds the meaning of
the drawing. The sheep caught in the storm has leaped from a higher ledge
across the foaming torrent to a lower : a very Devil's leap, for the lower ledge is
on an island ; there is no possibility of escape, and the sheep has been starved to
death.
" Here is another note on a Turner drawing. Mr. Ruskin had often been
struck with Turner's mythological treatment of the Mer de Glace as a dragon —
the 'glacier's restless mass' is, as it were, the serpent-coil, the water at the
glacier's mouth is the dragon's venom, and the scattered rocks are what the beast
726 RUSKINIANA
discharges. There can be no doubt of the interpretation, for on one of the stones
in Turner's drawing Mr. Ruskin has noticed a serpent. This is just one of those
small indications which Turner was wont to give of his meanings. What a re-
markable instance it is, by the way, of poetic insight that the geologists' ' laws of
glacier motion' should have been anticipated by Byron in those two lines at the
beginning of Manfred (written in 1817) : —
" ' The glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day.' " *
(Pall Mall Gazette, December 10, 1887.)
SARAH GRAND'S "!DEALA." — "The MS. of this book was offered to Mr. Allen,
who was ready to publish it ' if Mr. Ruskin approved.' Ruskin after reading a few
pages did not approve ; ' scribbling on it that he " didn't like the title," and
' couldn't bear queer people, however nice."'" (Westminster Gazette.)
SCOTT'S MANUSCRIPTS. — "Some years ago," says the writer of an article headed
"Three Minutes with Mr. Ruskin," "I was staying as a friend with Professor
Ruskin at Brantwood. In one of our many interesting conversations, I remember
I happened to say that to me it always seemed, when reading his books, from the
easy way the sentences followed, so smoothly and naturally — like the flow of water
in a river — that it was quite an easy matter to him to write them. 'My dear
sir,' he said, 'you have no idea of the labour and pain it is to me to write these
books of mine, that seem to you so easy. I will show you a great writer's work,
who could write as easily — as you have justly said — as the flow of water in a
river.' He rose from his chair, and taking out of a drawer of his study-table the
MS. copy of Scott's Fortunes of Nigel, he put it in my hand and said, 'Examine
that : it is just as Scott wrote it, in his own neat, clear hand.' It was a bound
volume of MS. about 12 in. by 9 in., and as I reverently turned over the pages, I
noticed how free it was from erasures or added words, many pages being altogether
free from alterations. 'Now,' he said, 'look at that,' and he put in my hand the
manuscript of that month's Fors, which he had just finished. ' You will scarcely
find one sentence as it was first written.' And so it proved — words crossed out,
and others put in their places, and sometimes whole sentences rearranged, and this
right through the whole copy. There was certainly a wonderful difference between
Scott's copy and Ruskin's in this respect. But I ventured to suggest that if Scott
had been writing Fors, instead of tales of imagination, the appearance of his copy
might have been different. 'Nonsense!' he said. 'Scott would have written Fors,
and have left as clean copy as that you have been looking at.' " (The Young Man,
July 1894, p. 227.)
THE ART OF MISQUOTATION. — "Ruskin at his best, all one could have wished
to find him, sat [1885] at his work -table in the room furnished as a sitting-room
or parlour. We talked of many things, our most engrossing subject being 'the
moralisation of capital and capitalists,' as our phrase of the moment had it. He
said many things, and read from manuscript a newly-written passage for Fors
Clavigera, somewhat discountenancing Henry George's scheme for land nationalisa-
tion. In this general connection, out of love for Ruskin himself and his sacrifices
to social progress, I quoted, correctly as I thought, the lines :
'Of all the qualities that make men great,
More go to ruin fortunes than create.'
" ' Whose lines are those ? ' said Ruskin, turning round sharply, with a quick
glance of sudden fire in his eyes. 'They are Pope's, are they not?' I answered,
in some confusion, for I remembered them as a quotation in Unto this Last. ' Yes,
they are Pope's, in a sense,' said Ruskiu, putting his hand on my knee, 'but they
are also your own, and they are very good lines. Pope's lines are these :
i See Vol. I. p. 202, and Praterita, i. § 173 (Vol. XXXV.).
ANECDOTA, ETC. 727
' " Of all the qualities that win our praise,
More go to ruin fortunes than to raise." J
You have travestied Pope, and your lines are stronger than his.'
" In some disturbance, I answered, ' It is a fault of mine to remember things in
my own way, and not in the author's.' 'No,' he answered, 'this is not a fault,
it is a faculty, and one to be cultivated.'" (A letter by Mr. J. C. Kenworthy in
the Daily News, August 14, 1900; reprinted in St. George, vol. iii. pp. 220, 221.)
"THE PRETTIEST THING IN NATURE." — "I often recall one little woodland lecture
when he told me that the prettiest thing in all nature was a patch of oak fern
growing on a slope, and the evening sun falling on it ; but the oak fern must be
quite young, or the delicate green would lose its special tone." (Daily News,
February 17, 1900.)
THE TRUE KNIGHT. — "I remember one of those long monologues, varied, absorb-
ing, combining pictures and metaphors into one delightful whole, while the talker,
carried along by his own interest in the subject, would be starting to his feet,
bringing down one volume and another volume from the shelf, opening the page
between his hands, and beginning to read the passage appropriate to his theme.
It was some book of Indian warfare that he brought down from its place, and as
he opened it he then and there began his sermon ; spoke of the example which
good Christian men and women might set in auy part of the world ; quoted Sir
Herbert Edwardes, whom he loved and admired, as an example of what a true man
should be. He spoke of him with kindling eyes, warming as he went on to tell, as
only a Ruskin could tell it, the heroic history of the first Sikh war." (Records of
Tennyson, Ruakin, and Browning, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, 1892, p. 77.)
THE TRUE LADY. — After his little lecture upon True Knights came "a delight-
ful description of what a true lady should be. ' A princess, a washerwoman,' he
said — ' yes, a washerwoman ! To see that all is fair and clean, to wash with water,
to cleanse and purify wherever she goes, to set disordered things in orderly array
— this was a woman's mission.' Which sentence has often occurred to me since
then at irritating moments of household administration." (Ibid., p. 78.)
WALT WHITMAN. — "Mr. Ruskin has sent to Mr. Walt Whitman for five com-
plete sets of Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets. He says in a letter that the
reason these books excite such hostile criticism is 'They are deadly true — in the
sense of rifles — against all our deadliest sins.'" (Athenaeum, March 20, 1880.)
WORK AND RHYME. — "A certain artisan had perpetrated some compositions
which he was pleased to call poetry. Not being able to find a publisher, he decided
to bring his book out by subscription, and sent a circular to Ruskin, among others,
inviting assistance. Ruskin's post-card in reply was : ' Certainly not. Mr. Ruskin
would set poets to work, not working-men to rhyme.'" (" Memories of Ruskin" in
the Outlook, June 10, 1899.)
"UNTO THIS LAST." — "I dislike my books," he said, "more than most authors;
yet I am convinced that all the central teaching of Unto this Last and Munera
Pulveris is entirely true. The world will not hear me ; yet it will live to discover
some day that nations cannot live on gunpowder and iron, but only on corn ; and
that the only way to deal with this sort of thing" — and here he went to the
window and "looked out upon the unemployed demonstrating in the square — " is
not by mere giving, not by charity at so much per cent, as ransom, but by personal
service." (From a report of a conversation with Ruskin in 1887, Daily News,
February 8, 1899. For the reference to Trafalgar Square, see above, p. 612.)
1 If these were Ruskin's actual words, he himself misquoted, for Pope wrote in
the first line, " Yet sure, of qualities demanding praise." See Unto this Last, § 65
(Vol. XVII. p. 89).
728 RUSKINIANA
MISCELLANEA
A GHOST STORY. — "Ruskin told me," says Mr. Stilliuan, "a story of a locality
in the Valley of Chamouni, of which the guides had told him, haunted by a
ghost which could only be seen by children. It was a figure of a woman who
raked the dead leaves, and when she looked up at them the children said they only
saw a skull in place of a face. Ruskin sent to a neighbouring valley for a child
who could know nothing of the legend, and went with him to the locality which
the ghost was reported to haunt. Arrived there, he said to the boy, 'What a
lonely place ! there is nobody here but ourselves.' ' Yes, there is,' said the
child, 'there is a woman there raking the leaves,' pointing in a certain direction.
' Let us go nearer to her,' said Ruskin, and they walked that way, when the boy
stopped and said that he did not want to go nearer, for the woman looked up, and
he said that she had no eyes in her head, 'only holes.'" (Autobiography of a
Journalist, by W. J. Stillman, vol. i. pp. 264-265.)
A JAPANESE VIEW OF RUSKIN. — A Californian correspondent of the Spectator
(February 27, 1904) sent to that journal "an essay on Ruskin written by a young
Japanese, who is our domestic servant, the son of a coal merchant in Japan."
" Ruskin's words," said the Japanese, " are but reflections of what was in his soul,
which was forged with the hammer of beauty on the anvil of Christianity. . . .
We might say that his mother built the frame of Christianity on the foundation
of his natural intellect, which his father decorated with the furniture of beauty,
and at last he himself finished with the flowers and greens from the yard at
Oxford. What we gained from his life is immense, but especially what his parents
did for him is a good instruction to parents, and the influence of faith and beauty
upon man's character is remarkably proved by Ruskin."
PIRATED "RUSKINS." — "A resident in the United States sent an English friend
an American edition of Ruskin's works. They were seized by the Customs. The
consignee wrote to Ruskin begging his permission to let the books enter. He
received the following reply : ' Sir, I do not see that your friend's desire to give
you a present at my expense is any apology for your intrusion upon me. — Yours,
etc., JOHN RUSKIN.'" (The Independent, May 11, 1899.)
Mr. Allen was once asked as a special favour to pass through a set of American
editions for a celebrated traveller. The matter was referred to Ruskin, who replied :
' ' Mr. had much better not burden himself with stolen property on his
missionary expedition. He shall certainly not do so with permission of mine."
("The American Trade in Ruskins," in the Pall Mall Gazette, December 21,
1887.)
RUSKIN AND TURNER. — "The attention of Mr. Ruskin having been called to a
statement, frequently repeated, that J. W. Turner had said that Mr. Ruskin could
see more in his pictures than he ever put there, Mr. Ruskin's secretary writes
that Mr. Ruskin being ordered complete rest, could not reply, but he believes that
Mr. Ruskin's father was the first to make the remark, and that Mr. Ruskin assents
to it,1 holding that Turner was inspired to do what he did without being fully
conscious of all it might mean, as was the case with poets and writers of our
sacred books." (The Times, September 30, 1887.)
1 Here the secretary was ill-informed. Ruskin had combated the remark in
Modern Painters: see Vol. VI. p. 274 and n.
ANECDOTA, ETC. 729
TOLSTOY ON RUSKIN. — In conversation with an English visitor,1 Tolstoy "showed
himself deeply interested in English and American social questions ; also in Ruskin
and Matthew Arnold. Ruskin he thought one of the greatest men of the age.
' When Ruskin,' he said, ' began to write on philosophy and on morality, he was
ignored by everybody, especially by the English press, which has a peculiar way
of ignoring anybody it does not like. I am not astonished that people speak so
little of Ruskin in comparison with Gladstone. When the latter makes a speech,
the papers are loud with their praises, but when Ruskin, whom I believe to be
a greater man, talks, they say nothing.'" (Pull Mall Gazette, May 26, 1892.)
"He had read most of Ruskin's books, beginning with Unto this Last. Had
we seen Ruskin et la Bible ? a ' No ? You must get it. There was a man who
read his Bible, and to some purpose. He was a very great man.' 'I like his
face,' he added. {I have seen two portraits, front face and profile, both after he
had grown a beard. He was like a Russian peasant.' This last remark is still
more true of Tolstoy himself, whose type of face, with less force and less keen-
ness in the eye but the same features, may be seen again and again in the streets
of Tula and Moscow. There is nothing delicate, nothing aristocratic about his
build, although his family is an ancient and distinguished one. His nose, as he
lamented in his childhood, is very broad, his lips are thick, his hands and ears
noticeably large. In manner and speech he is very gentle, ready to listen as well
as to talk. One of us quoted Ruskin's lament to a friend that he had not re-
nounced his possessions. 'That interests me very much,' Tolstoy said, 'for it is
my case also. And why did not Ruskin do it?' 'He found it so difficult. He
had so many ties, artists to support, etc.' ' Ah ! ' he replied, with a sigh. ' That
is it ; we do not become Christians until late in life, and then there are ties.' "
("The Latest from Tolstoy," in the Daily Chronicle, August 4, 1903.)
RUSKIN'S NAME ON GIOTTO'S TOWER. — " ' I have solved the mystery,' writes a
distinguished literary correspondent from Florence, 'about Mr. Ruskin cutting his
name on the top of the Campanile ; for there is a legend, painful as it may be to
disciples of the master to hear it, that " J. Ruskin " is conspicuously carved at the
top of "the Shepherd's Tower." The legend has a natural growth out of the
fact that one of the "Asiatic horde" named "J. Rruskinsky," or something like
that, has cut his barbaric appellation there, and time (or an American humourist)
has partly obliterated the beginning and the end of the inscription.' " (Pall Mall
Gazette, September 9, 1886.)
1 Mr. Aylmer Maude records a similar conversation in his Tolstoy and his
Problems, 1901, p. 71.
1 H. J. Brunhes, Ruskin et la Bible pour servir a Fhistoire d'une pensee, Paris,
1901.
COMPLIMENTARY ADDRESSES
TO RUSKIN
1. CHRISTMAS 1885
2. ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, 1899:—
(i.) FROM MEMBERS OF VARIOUS SOCIETIES
(ii.) FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
[Bibliographical Note. — Of the Addresses here given, the first was printed
as a pamphlet, small quarto, pp. 38. There is no regular title-page, the
words " To John Raskin " appearing on page 1 ; page 2 is blank ; pp. 3—4,
text of the address ; signatures, pp. 4-38.
Dated "Christmas 1885," and issued in mottled-grey paper boards, with
linen back, lettered on the front: "Copy of the Address to Mr. Ruskin."
The Address was projected by Dr. (afterwards Sir) Oliver Lodge. A letter
from Ruskin on the subject will be found in Vol. XXXVII.
For a letter to the press, written in consequence of an erroneous report
in the Daily Telegraph, see above, p. 589.
The Address was sent anonymously ; but after a time Sir Oliver Lodge
communicated with Brantwood on the subject, and received the following
letter from Mrs. Severn (here reprinted from St. George, vol. ix., 1906,
p. 9) :-
"BRANTWOOD, 22nd January, 1886.
"DEAR PROFESSOR LODGE, — The 'memorial' most assuredly came! — and was on
Christmas Day given by me to Mr. Ruskin. He was naturally much touched, and
deeply grateful — indeed no one could have been more truly appreciative — especially
coming as it did, after a weary time of despondency and belief that he had done
very little, if any, real good in the world — and that few really cared about him, or
his work.
" Mercifully this sad phase has now passed — due, I am sure, in great part to
this general expression of sympathy and appreciation of his work.
" If I had had the least idea from whom the precious parcel came, I would at
once have written to acknowledge it, and thank you — and I know Mr. Ruskin is
anxious to express in some fitting form his own gratitude and appreciation of so
invaluable a gift. — Believe me, gratefully yours,
"JOAN RUSKIN SEVERN."
The second Address was projected by Mr. William White, then Curator
of the St. George's Museum. It was on vellum, the decoration being the
work of Mr. Pilley, of Sheffield.
The text of the address was printed as a pamphlet, quarto, pp. 16.
There is no title — page 1 being headed: —
Text of Congratulatory Address | Presented to | Professor Ruskin,
M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., etc., | On his Eightieth Birthday, February 8th,
1899.
The address follows ; p. 2 is blank ; pp. 3-15, signatures ; p. 16 is blank.
Issued in grey paper wrappers, lettered on the front : " In celebration |
of | Professor Ruskin's | Eightieth Birthday. | Text of the Illuminated
Address, | and | List of Appended Signatories."
The address was extensively reprinted in the daily newspapers.
An account of the presentation of the address at Brantwood ("At
Brantwood, 8th February, 1899 ") appeared in St. George, April 1899, vol. ii.
pp. 59-62. Ruskin, who was in weak health, dictated the following reply
(p. 61) to Mr. Severn:—
"Mr. Ruskin is deeply touched by the address, and finds it difficult
to give expression to his feelings of gratitude, but trusts they will
be made known for him. He values the address highly, and thinks
it charmingly done."]
COMPLIMENTARY ADDRESSES
TO RUSKIN
1. ON HIS RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS, CHRISTMAS 1885
THANKFULLY rejoicing at your recovery from recent illness, we ask you to accept
the expression of our earnest hope that you may long be enabled to continue the
work of your life.
Work so wide and various as yours appeals to us in different ways, but without
professing to be in agreement with every detail of your teaching, we are heartily
and gratefully united in the conviction that your genius has been a great gift,
nobly used by you for the benefit of your country and the world ; and that your
writings have proved, and will increasingly prove, a source of strength and joy to
the English -speaking race.
Those of us who have made a special study of economic and social questions
desire to convey to you their deep sense of the value of your work in these subjects,
pre-eminently in its enforcement of the doctrines : —
That Political Economy can furnish sound laws of national life and work
only when it respects the dignity and moral destiny of man.
That the wise use of wealth, in developing a complete human life, is of incom-
parably greater moment both to men and nations than its production or
accumulation, and can alone give these any vital significance.
That honourable performance of duty is more truly just than rigid enforcement
of right ; and that not in competition but in helpfulness, not in self-asser-
tion but in reverence, is to be found the power of life.
It is both our hope and our belief that your advocacy of principles such as these,
by its suggestive analysis no less than by the inspiration of its eloquence, will be
powerfully felt in the social and economic teaching of the future, and in our
national life.
In Art and Science we one and all acknowledge the quickening and purifying
virtue of your work and writings. They have rescued monuments of man's noblest
efforts from forgetfulness and sometimes from destruction, and have given back
to our eyes the hills and clouds as from a fresh consecration. Apart from their
effect on those specially interested in the Arts, they have created in many a plain
citizen a new sense for the beauty of familiar things, awakening a perception of
the influence which that beauty is capable of exercising on everyday life, and
manifesting with startling force how grievously the life of multitudes is stunted
by the ugliness, both physical and moral, of our great cities.
Above all, that which gives your teaching its ennobling and beneficent character
is the unfaltering conviction, expressed in words we can never forget, that at the
root of all excellence of art, all perception in science, and all true national great-
ness, lie the old homely virtues ; whose larger meaning and scope, in their bearing
on our age, you have exhibited in so strong and new a light
Mindful of this, and of much that each could only say for himself, we could
recall as fittest expression of our gratitude and reverence, the words in which you
733
734 RUSKINIANA
have yourself spoken of your "friend and guide," Thomas Carlyle, as one "who has
asked England to be brave for the help of Man, and just, for the love of God."
[The list of signatures is headed with those of Helen, Duchess of Albany, Tennyson, and
Browning. Among the others are the names of the Marquis of Ripon, Bishop Lightfoot,
Lord and Lady Mount Temple, Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lord and Lady Aberdeen,
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Canon (afterwards Bishop) Westcott, Dean Bradley ; Professor Max
Miiller, Professor Jebb, Professor B. H, Kennedy, Sir Henry Acland, and many other leading
members of the universities ; Sir Theodore and Lady Martin ; Miss Octavia Hill ; Watts, Stacy
Marks, Briton Riviere, John M'Whirter, Holman Hunt, Sir Noel Paton ; Sir Charles and Lady
Dilke; Professor F. A. Walker, M. Emile de Laveleye, Professor H. S. Foxwell, and many
other economists ; Alfred Russel Wallace, W. H. Flower, T. G. Bonney, J. Prescott Joule, and
other Fellows of the Royal Society; Henry Broadhurst, M.P., and Thomas Burt, M.P. ; a large
number of the professors in Canadian and American universities ; and many other persons
distinguished in all walks of life.]
2. ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, 1899
(i.) From Members of Various Societies
OUR DEAR MASTER AND FRIEND, — The eightieth anniversary of your birthday
gives us the opportunity of offering our united loving greetings and heartiest con-
gratulations.
As the representative members of the St. George's Guild and the Ruskin
Societies of the country — owing so much of the good and joy of life to your words
and work — we feel that the world is richer and happier for the lasting benefits
which you have been able to confer upon all who have come under your influence.
Year by year there is, in ever-widening extent, an increasing trust in your
ethical, social, and art teaching, an increasing desire to realise the noble ideals
you have set before mankind, in words which we feel have brought nearer to
our hearts the kingdom of God upon earth.
It is our fervent hope and prayer that the joy and peace you have beneficently
brought to others may return in full measure to your own heart, filling it with
the peace which comes from love of God and the 'knowledge of the love of your
fellow men.
It will be a great happiness to us if you will consent to your portrait being
painted by your life-long friend, William Holman Hunt, and accept the same as the
national property of the St. George's Guild, in token of our affectionate devotion.1
Appended to this, our address of congratulation, we have the further happiness
to subscribe the following additional lists of names of National and other repre-
sentative institutions, all of whom have directly and personally intimated their
unanimous wish to be allowed the opportunity of being included in this general
expression of their deepest respect, profoundest admiration, and sincerest affection.
Wishing you yet many years of peaceful rest, we have the honour to remain,
Ever yours in faithful and dutiful service,
THE SUBSCRIBERS.
[The Address was signed by (1) members of the St. George's Guilds, and artists
engaged in work for it ; (2) members of various " Societies of the Rose " — namely,
the Ruskin Society of Glasgow, the Ruskin Society of Liverpool, the Ruskin Society
of Birmingham, the Ruskin Society of Paisley ; (3) several Trustees of the National
Gallery, British Museum, etc. ; (4) various " Collaborateurs, Biographers, and
Editors"; (5) the President and forty-seven Members and Associates of the Royal
Academy of Arts ; (6) the President and ten members of the Royal Society of
Painters in Water-Colours ; (7) the President and many members of the Royal
1 The state of Ruskin's health made this impracticable.
COMPLIMENTARY ADDRESSES 735
Society of Literature; (8) the President and officials of the Royal Institute of
British Architects ; (9) members of the Committee of the Durer Society ; (10) the
Chairman and officials of the Art for Schools Association; (11) the Committee of
the Manchester Art Museum, Ancoats ; (12) the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge ; (13) the President, officials, and several members of the Council of
the Geological Society of London ; (14) the President and officials of the Minera-
logical Society ; (15) the Curator and officials of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright
Museum Association ; (16) the President and officials of the Selborne Society ;
(17) the president and officials of the National Trust for Places of Historical
Interest or Natural Beauty ; (18) the President and members of Council of the
National Society for Checking the Abuses of Public Advertising; (19) the Super-
intendent of the Ruskin Linen Industry, Keswick ; (20) the Directors of the
Keswick School of Industrial Arts ; (21) the Principal and Teacher of the Whitelands
Training College; and (22) the Whitelands May Queens (1881-1898).
The Ruskin Society of London, not included in the foregoing list, presented a
separate address, as follows : — ]
" We, the undersigned, members of the Ruskin Society of London, offer
you our most sincere congratulations on the occasion of your eightieth
birthday, and earnestly hope that you may be spared to long enjoy your
well-earned rest, surrounded by loving friends, in your beautiful home on
Coniston Lake. We desire at the same time to express the admiration of
and affectionate respect we feel towards you, and to acknowledge our
indebtedness to you in the noble work of your life. The books you have
written are precious to us, inasmuch as they contain principles of truth
applicable to every branch of art — including the art of life — conveyed in
convincing and elegant words ; and, being in full sympathy with your teach-
ing, from which we have derived much benefit, we do what is in our
power to make your writings known, and therefore trust that it may be
pleasant to you to receive our congratulations."
(ii.) From the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses in the
University of Oxford
We venture to send you, as you begin your eighty-first year, these words of
greeting and goodwill, to make you sure that in Oxford the gratitude and reverence
with which men think of you is ever fresh.
You have helped many to find in life more happiness than they thought it held,
and we trust that there is happiness in the latter years of your long life.
You have taught many to see the wealth of beauty in nature and in art,
prizing the remembrance of it ; and we trust that the sights you have best loved
come back to your memory with unfading beauty.
You have encouraged many to keep a good heart through dark days, and we
trust that the courage of a constant hope is yours.
[Among other addresses presented on this occasion was the following resolution of the
Coniston Parish Council: "That the congratulations of this council be offered to Mr. John
Ruskin, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, together with the warm thanks which they
and all their neighbours feel for the kindness he has shown, and the many generous acts he
has done to them and theirs during twenty-seven years of residence at Coniston, where his
presence is most truly appreciated, and his name will always be most gratefully remembered."
See also Ruskin's reply to "Ruskin Hall," above, p. 622.]
END OF VOLUME XXXIV
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